MIT PHYSICIST SHARES NOBEL FOR ANALYSIS OF MATTER WITH NEUTRONS

Author: By Scott Allen, Globe Staff

Date: Thursday, October 13, 1994
Page: 1
Section: METRO

During the first decade after World War II, Shull, 79, harnessed the shower of neutrons produced in a nuclear reaction to analyze the atomic structure of solids and liquids. Shull's neutron scattering technique paved the way for a host of modern discoveries, from plastics to better computer memories to biological tests.

"I'm really happy they finally discovered his work. With something as fundamental as this, it's easy to forget who discovered it," said a Nobel laureate, Jerome I. Friedman of MIT, who, along with MIT's dean of science, Robert J. Birgeneau, nominated Shull for the physics prize this year.

Also yesterday, the Swedish academy of science announced that University of Southern California scientist George Olah has won the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Shull, who will share the $930,000 prize with Bertram N. Brockhouse of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, is a familiar name to physics students, cited frequently in their textbooks for contributions to the understanding of the structure of organic materials as well as the magnetic behavior of metals.

Despite Shull's success, colleagues at MIT say he is extremely modest. ''Cliff is one of the most delightful people in our department and we are delighted on a personal level," said Ernest Moniz, chairman of MIT's physics department.

Yesterday, Shull deflected some of the credit from himself to the late Ernest Wollan, Shull's research partner when the two worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee in the 1940s and 1950s. Asked how he felt when the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences informed him he had won a Nobel prize yesterday at 5:30 a.m., Shull replied simply, "I'm surprised."

Shull's 40-year wait for his Nobel Prize may have been extreme, but the academy typically takes years to recognize scientists' discoveries -- even the discoverers of the structure of DNA waited nine years for a Nobel. But the delay allows the academy to judge the long-term impact of scientific discoveries.

MIT officials said they have nominated Shull repeatedly for the Nobel Prize over the last decade, but physics research is so competitive and diverse that he was repeatedly passed over. This year, however, Birgeneau said the university convinced science leaders in Japan, Britain and France as well as Sweden that Shull deserved the prize.

"I hadn't tried organizing at the international level before. I learned a lesson," Birgeneau said. The Swedish academy's board of directors chooses the winners, but they rely on nominations from leading institutions worldwide.

USC's Olah won the chemistry prize for his research on hydrocarbons, a key component of oil and natural gas.

Olah said he was "overwhelmed," but has no intention of "sitting on past glories. I'm going to continue to be very active and push on with my work," he told Reuters.

The physics prize co-winner, Shull, came to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1946, attracted by the nuclear reactor that had been used to develop the atomic bomb during the secret Manhattan Project. "Scientists at Oak Ridge were real eager to find real, honest-to-goodness uses for the technology they had developed," Shull recalled.

Shull and Wollan found that by bombarding materials with the neutrons produced in the reactor, they could determine where the atoms in the tested material were located. This information is vital for understanding the way atomic structure affects a material's boiling point, hardness and other basic properties.

"Most people know that X-ray methods and microscopy can be used for studying objects in detail," explains the Nobel announcement issued in Stockholm. "Despite refinements, these methods are not always adequate. The researchers now rewarded have developed neutron scattering techniques, powerful methods of analyzing both solid and fluid matter."

The neutron scattering techniques pioneered by Shull and Brockhouse -- who have never met -- made possible major advances in materials sciences such as high-temperature superconductors that carry electricity without losing energy and polymers that are the building blocks of plastic.

After coming to MIT in 1955, Shull continued to refine neutron scattering and raised three sons with his wife, Martha. After retiring in 1986, Shull kept in touch with the undergraduates who used his lab at MIT, but in recent years he has been "pretty much a home person."

Friends and admirers feared that Shull might be overlooked for the Nobel Prize, especially as people who had followed in his footsteps began winning Nobels. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes of France, the 1991 winner for physics, relied on Shull's work for his research into the molecular order of liquid crystals.

Though MIT officials were delighted to collect the 27th Nobel Prize by faculty and alumni, some found irony in Shull's prize. In the years since he virtually created the field of thermal neutron physics, the United States has lost its research leadership to Europe and Japan.

"It's in part the public paranoia with nuclear reactors. We haven't built a research reactor since the 1960s," Birgeneau said.

ALLEN ;10/12 NIGRO ;10/13,09:31 NOBEL13