31 August 2010
Prof. A.V. Crewe, Director Emeritus of Argonne National Laboratory, USA and graduate from Univ. of Liverpool dies at 82 years
Message below from Jennifer Crewe.
I'm writing to let you know that my father, A.V. Crewe, who received his PhD in physics as well as an honorary degree from the University of Liverpool, died this morning in Chesterton, Indiana. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire. He left Liverpool in 1955 to go to the University of Chicago. Crewe was Wrather Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, former director of Argonne National Laboratory, and recipient of the Michelson Medal. I am hoping you will be able to inform people at the university and perhaps send this message to the office of public relations. I sent an email to the Liverpool Echo this morning. If there is another paper that would be appropriate to notify please let me know. I've attached a somewhat more detailed version of a Wikipedia article I wrote that gives the details of his life and accomplishments, but I know something formal was written up by the university when he received the honorary degree about 10 years ago.
Message below from John Dainton to Jennifer Crewe.
Please let me offer my deepest condolences to you and your family on the passing of your Father. He was a very distinguished physicist whom I never had the privilege to meet, but about whom I had recently come to know much.
I would also like to say that your Father and his achievements have been very much in my mind for almost a decade now. Please let me explain.
Some 6 years ago, in parallel with a UK government initiative to fund an expansion of accelerator science and engineering, particle physicists in Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester Universities combined with colleagues at the Daresbury Laboratory to create a new and rather unique Institute, the Cockcroft Institute (CI) (http://www.cockcroft.ac.uk/). At foundation I was privileged to be asked to be Director, which I agreed to do on the understanding that the Institute should be run by a world renowned expert in the field. I am only an experimental particle physicist. It didn’t take long to find the person, and then with the help of my Vice Chancellor, we attracted Professor Swapan Chattopadhyay from Jefferson Lab and before that Berkeley to take up the Directorship. I have copied him into this email. I am now delighted to say that under Swapan’s leadership the CI is flourishing, and moreover seems to be becoming a model to be imitated elsewhere worldwide.
While I was Director, and before, I of course became closely aware of your Father’s achievements, and indeed I made the most of them in arguing the case for the funding to start the CI. I have attached an overhead which I confess to having used a number of times when trying to convince those who have money that Liverpool is the right place to back when it comes to accelerator physics, and in which you may be interested. It is absolutely clear to me and to many of my colleagues who work at CERN, DESY, Stanford, Fermilab, ESRF Grenoble, and in Japan that your Father played a crucial role in the advances achieved in the second half of the 20th century in physics.
I do hope that you and the rest of your family take great strength in your bereavement from the fact that your Father achieved so much of inestimable value throughout his life. I know I am not alone as a fellow physicist in saying that I am proud to work at the university which clearly set your Father off on his distinguished career, and to be able to say, as you see, that his achievements at Liverpool continue to this day to set the standard for us to follow.
Yours sincerely
John (Dainton)
