Alan Cottrell

Sir Alan Howard Cottrell (born 1919) is a British metallurgist and physicist.

Additional recommended knowledge

What is the Sensitivity of my Balance?

Weighing the right way

What is the Correct Way to Check Repeatability in Balances?

He received his BSc degree from the University of Birmingham in 1939 and a PhD for research on welding in 1942. He joined the staff as a lecurer at Birmingham, being made professor in 1949, and transforming the teaching of the department by emphasing modern concepts of solid state physics. In 1955 he moved to A.E.R.E. Harwell, to become Deputy Head of Metallurgy under Monty Finniston.

From 1958 to 1965 he was Goldsmiths' professor of metallurgy at Cambridge University, and a fellow of Christ's College. He then worked for the government in various capacities, ultimately as Chief Scientific Adviser from 1971 to 1974, before becoming Master of Jesus College, Cambridge from 1973 to 1986, and vice-chancellor of the University in 1977-79.

Sir Alan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1955, and won its Hughes Medal in 1961 and the Copley Medal (the Royal Society's highest award) in 1996. He was knighted in 1971.

Selected Books

• Theoretical Structural Metallurgy (1948)
• Dislocations and Plastic Flows in Crystals (1953)
• Superconductivity (1964)
• An Introduction to Metallurgy (1967)
• Portrait of Nature : the world as seen by modern science (1975)
• How Safe is Nuclear Energy? (1982)
• Concepts in the Electron Theory of Alloys (1998)