Knight, Frank

Sir Frederick Charles Frank (1911-1998) received his Ph.D. in 1937 from Oxford University, followed by a postdoctoral position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut fiir Physik in Berlin. During World War II, Frank was involved with the British Chemical Defense Research Establishment, and because of his keen powers of observation and interpretation, he was later transferred to Scientific Intelligence at the British Air Ministry. In 1946, Frank joined the H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory at the University of Bristol under its director, Nevill Mott, who encouraged him to look into problems concerned with crystal growth and the plastic deformation of metallic crystals. A stream of successes followed, establishing his scientific fame, as evidenced by many eponyms the Frank-Read source, the Frank dislocation, Frank s rule, Frank-Kasper phases. His theoretical work has been the foundation of research by innumerable scientists from around the world. Frank was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) Medal in 1946, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1954, and was knighted in 1977. 

Frank DA, Augustyn M, Knight WG, Pell T, Zuckerman B. Growth, development, and behavior in... 

Franks, N.P. Lieb, W.R. X-ray and neutron diffraction studies of lipid bilayers. In Liposomes From Physical Structure to Therapeutic Applications Knight, C.G., Ed. Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press Amsterdam, 1981 243-272. 

Frank, Sir Charles (1911-1998) was born in Durban, South Africa (knighted 1977). He obtained his degrees from the University of Oxford. During World War II he worked for the Chemical Warfare Establishment at Porton Down and then for the scientific intelligence group at the Air Ministry. He moved to work on physics at the University of Bristol in 1946 he retired from Bristol in 1976, but remained active and shared a partitioned office with CBC in 1985/1986. In addition to dislocations, his interests included crystal growth, liquid crystals, nuclear physics, and even polymers. 

We would like to thank all of the students involved in this work, especially Mark Taylor, Richard Maughon, and Chris Salmon. We especially would like to thank our close collaborators Charles Knight and Frank Sonnischen for their assistance, kind comments and suggestions throughout. This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation MCB-9322602 and MCB-9723271. 

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