Edward Eisner
{{Short description|Hungarian-British physicist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2016}}
Edward Eisner FRSE FIP (1929-1987) was a Hungarian-born physicist who was Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Strathclyde 1968-1987.{{Cite web |url=https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/cs/gmap/academicaffairs/publications/part1201011/University_Chairs.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=7 April 2016 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304202609/http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/cs/gmap/academicaffairs/publications/part1201011/University_Chairs.pdf |url-status=dead }} He specialised in the physics of sound.
The "Edward Eisner Memorial Fund Award" is named in his honour.{{Cite web |url=https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/cs/gmap/academicaffairs/publications/part1201011/Awards.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=7 April 2016 |archive-date=24 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120124164750/http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/ps/cs/gmap/academicaffairs/publications/part1201011/Awards.pdf |url-status=dead }}
Life
He was born in Sárvár in Hungary on 20 December 1929.
He came to Britain with his family in the 1930s and attended the George Herbert Strutt School in Belper in Derbyshire from 1939. He won a place at Cambridge University studying Physics and graduated BA in 1950, gaining a doctorate (PhD) in 1954. From 1954 he worked with the Ministry of Power at Buxton. In 1960 he went to America to work with the Bell Telephone Laboratory in New Jersey, working on the improvement of handsets. In 1968 he returned to Britain to take the chair in Applied Physics at Strathclyde University retaining this role until death. He was replaced by Prof Gordon Donaldson.
In 1969 he infamously wrote an open letter to NASA suggesting how to improve their television broadcasts from the Moon.Glasgow Herald (newspaper) 27 November 1969
In 1977 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Kenneth Jack Standley, Nicholas Kemmer, Simon G G MacDonald, and William Cochran.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=7 April 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}
He died on Christmas Day 1987.