Felix Pirani

Pirani was born in England, to parents who were both musicians. Pirani's family, who were Jewish, moved to Canada at the start of World War II. He studied at the University of Western Ontario (Bachelor 1948), the University of Toronto (Master's degree in 1949). He obtained his D. Sc. at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1951 under Alfred Schild. His D. Sc. dissertation was an early contribution to the quantum theory of general relativity. He also obtained a PhD in physics at Cambridge University in 1956 under Hermann Bondi.

Pirani performed post-doctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. In 1958 he started teaching at King's College London (where Bondi was also teaching) and in 1968 became professor of rational mechanics there.David Robinson, Gravitation and general relativity at King's College London, European Physical Journal H 44, pp 181–270 (2019)American Institute of Physics

[https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/34463 Dean Rickles interview in Institute of Physics history June 2011]

In 1957 Pirani independently discovered what was later called the Petrov classification (also Petrov–Pirani–Penrose classification) and separately discovered by Petrov in 1954.

In 1959 Bondi, Pirani and Ivor Robinson published a fundamental paper on gravitational wave solutions in general relativity and showed the existence of plane gravitational wave solutions.{{cite journal|author=H. Bondi, F. A. E. Pirani, I. Robinson|title=Gravitational waves in General Relativity III: Exact plane waves|journal=Proc. R. Soc. A|volume=251|issue=1267|year=1959|pages=519–533|url=http://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jkw/phys3550/GWs/Gravitational_waves_in_general_relativity_exact_plane_waves.pdf|doi=10.1098/rspa.1959.0124|bibcode = 1959RSPSA.251..519B |s2cid=122766998 }} Pirani's work with Bondi and Robinson resulted in correspondence between Pirani and Albert Einstein, some of whose partially expressed views on the subject had been challenged by the paper.Peter Galison "The Roots of Special Relativity" 2001 Routledge {{ISBN|978-0415937153}} pp 29{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/science/a-century-ago-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-changed-everything.html|title=A Century Ago, Einstein's Theory of Relativity Changed Everything|date=24 November 2015|website=The New York Times}}Princeton University Albert Einstein Archives [http://alberteinstein.info/vufind1/Author/Home?author=Pirani%2C%20Felix%20A.%20E.%20(Author) Pirani Correspondence with Einstein]

In 1972 Pirani, Jürgen Ehlers and Alfred Schild showed that the space-time geometry of general relativity can be constructed from simple measuring processes with light beams and free-falling particles.Ehlers, Pirani, Schild The geometry of free fall and light propagation, in O'Raifeartaigh (Herausgeber) General Relativity. Papers in Honor of J. L. Synge, Oxford University Press 1972, S. 63–84

In 1960 Pirani revised the general audience book "The ABC of Relativity", originally written by Bertrand Russell in 1925. He continued revisions up to 2002.Preface to "The ABC of Relativity" Routledge 2009 {{ISBN|978-0451609939}} In the 1990s he began writing books aimed at the general audience, e.g. Introducing the Universe, translated into French as L'Astronomie sans aspirine (Astronomy without aspirin).Felix Pirani Introducing the Universe Totem Books 1990 {{ISBN|978-1874166061}}Felix Pirani and Christine Roche L'Astronomie sans aspirine Flammarion 2002 {{ISBN|978-2080680334}}

Pirani was politically active in the 1970s and 1980s, had a left leaning stance, and opposed the unchecked use of science for military purposes.Gerald Wick, "Activism with feeling" New Scientist and Science Journal 11 February 1971, pp 311–312

Richard Fifield, New Scientist 27 August 1981, pp 533 Along with DNA pioneer Maurice Wilkins, who was also at King's, Pirani was involved in the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science.Hilary Rose, Ideology of/in the natural sciences 1980 {{ISBN|978-0816190027}} pp xxviii

In 1971 Pirani told the New Scientist that during an academic visit to the University of North Carolina issues about slavery and the American Civil War "hit him in the face" and upon his return to England he joined the Scientists of the Left and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and became a political activist. Pirani studied disarmament and founded the Science Forum as a group of scientists that met monthly in London to discuss the social problems of science.New Scientist 20 December 1962, pp 699 Pirani's efforts were based on his view that the public belief that "science will solve the world's problems" is a delusion because funding for research comes from the top levels of the social hierarchy, which controls the direction of scientific progress for its own purposes.

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• {{MathGenealogy |id=36885}}
• {{ cite journal |title=A two-part feature: The Mathematics of Gravitational waves |author=Christina Sormani |author2=C. Denson Hill |author3=Paweł Nurowski |author4=Lydia Bieri |author5=David Garfinkle |author6=Nicolás Yunes |journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society |volume=64 |issue=7 |date=August 2017 |pages=684–707 |issn= 1088-9477 |doi=10.1090/noti1551 |doi-access=free }}

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Category:British relativity theorists

Category:1928 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge

Category:Jewish British physicists