Robin Bullough
Robin Bullough | |
|---|---|
Prof Robin Bullough, as illustrated in a portrait that hung in the Mathematics Dept common room of the Maths and Social Sciences Building to commemorate Bullough's term as head of department. | |
| Born | 21 November 1929 |
| Died | 30 August 2008 (aged 78) |
| Known for | Bullough-Dodd model Dodd-Bullough-Mikhailov equation Bullough-Dodd-Zhiber-Shabat equation (with Roger Dodd, Anatoly Zhiber, and Aleksei Shabat) Tzitzéica-Bullough-Dodd equation |
Robin K. Bullough (21 November 1929 – 30 August 2008) was a British mathematical physicist known for his contributions to the theory of solitons, in particular for his role in the development of the theory of the optical soliton, now commonly used, for example, in the theory of trans-oceanic optical fibre communication theory, but first recognised in Bullough's work on ultra-short (nano- and femto-second) optical pulses. He is also known for deriving exact solutions to the nonlinear equations describing these solitons and for associated work on integrable systems, infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems (both classical and quantum), and the statistical mechanics for these systems. Bullough also contributed to nonlinear mathematical physics, including Bose–Einstein condensation in magnetic traps.
Bullough obtained his first academic position in the Mathematics Department at UMIST in 1960 and was appointed chair of Mathematical Physics in 1973 where he remained until his retirement in 1995. He was then an Emeritus Professor in the same department, which has now become the School of Mathematics in the University of Manchester.