PHYSICIST

Mark Oliphant

1901 - 2000

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Sir Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant, (8 October 1901 – 14 July 2000) was an Australian physicist and humanitarian who played an important role in the first experimental demonstration of nuclear fusion and in the development of nuclear weapons. Born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia, Oliphant graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1922. He was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship in 1927 on the strength of the research he had done on mercury, and went to England, where he studied under Sir Ernest Rutherford at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. There, he used a particle accelerator to fire heavy hydrogen nuclei (deuterons) at various targets. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Mark Oliphant is the 579th most popular physicist (up from 721st in 2019), the 163rd most popular biography from Australia (up from 256th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Australian Physicist.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Mark Oliphant ranks 579 out of 851. Before him are Claude Pouillet, Marcel Brillouin, Eric Allin Cornell, Étienne-Gaspard Robert, Wallace Clement Sabine, and Norman Holter. After him are Yakov Frenkel, Yulii Khariton, Antonio Pacinotti, Sergey Kapitsa, Georg Adolf Erman, and Otto Lehmann.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1901, Mark Oliphant ranks 203. Before him are Willy Fritsch, Konstantinos Kollias, William Daniels, Louis Boyer, Gustav Knuth, and Arne Borg. After him are Arleigh Burke, Haj Ali Razmara, Frank Zamboni, Hugo Haas, Alfred Müller-Armack, and Frederick Loewe. Among people deceased in 2000, Mark Oliphant ranks 174. Before him are Antonio Buero Vallejo, Charles Gray, George Segal, Rhadi Ben Abdesselam, Patricia Jones, and Liane Haid. After him are Gus Hall, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ioannis Andreou, Henry Eriksson, Ansumane Mané, and Antti Hyvärinen.

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In Australia

Among people born in Australia, Mark Oliphant ranks 163 out of 1,143. Before him are Gordon George Avery (1925), Ashley Cooper (1936), John Bromwich (1918), Albert Namatjira (1902), Robert Menzies (1894), and Bill Mollison (1928). After him are Norman Brookes (1877), Tommy Emmanuel (1955), John Winter (1924), Julian McMahon (1968), John Williams (1941), and Bob Morley (1984).

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Among PHYSICISTS In Australia

Among physicists born in Australia, Mark Oliphant ranks 3. Before him are Lawrence Bragg (1890), and Alexander Prokhorov (1916). After him are Helen Quinn (1943).

Australian born Physicists

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