ZIMAN, John M(ichael) 1925-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born May 16, 1925, in Cambridge, England; died January 2, 2005. Physicist, educator, and author. Ziman, who was an expert on solid-state physics, became a leading commentator on the relationship between science and society. After earning a B.Sc. in 1945 and an M.Sc. in 1946 from Victoria University of Wellington, he attended Balliol College, Oxford. Here he completed three degrees: a B.A. in 1949 and an M.A. and D.Phil. in 1952. During the early 1950s, he taught mathematics at Oxford. He joined the Cambridge University faculty in 1954, becoming a fellow at King's College from 1957 until 1964 and a tutor from 1959 until 1963. Moving to the University of Bristol in 1964, he taught theoretical physics in the late 1960s, was named Melville Wills Professor of Physics in 1969, and became Henry Overton Will Professor of Physics in 1976. During his last years at Bristol, Ziman directed the H. H. Wills Physics Lab, retiring in 1982. He spent the 1980s as a visiting professor at the Imperial College of Science and Technology and as chair of the Science Policy Support Group from 1986 until 1991. As a physicist, Ziman was interested in crystalline and non-crystalline solids and in the magnetic and electrical properties of matter. He was the author, coauthor, or editor of a number of books in the field, several of which are still used as college textbooks. Among these are Principles of the Theory of Solids (1964; second edition, 1979) and Elements of Advanced Quantum Theory (1969). Later in his career, Ziman became increasingly concerned about the state of science in modern society. Specifically, he was worried about the use of science for moral purposes (he fretted over the dangers of nuclear weaponry, for instance) and about the increasingly industrialized nature of scientific practices. Regarding the latter, Ziman felt that the pure science of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, in which researchers conducted experiments to discover the nature of our world, was being supplanted by science that was influenced by corporate interests that limited research to specific goals designed to make a profit. Because of this development, he felt that science was beginning to reach its limits of discovery. Ziman wrote increasingly on these subjects in such books as The Force of Knowledge: The Scientific Dimension of Society (1976), Knowing Everything about Nothing: Specialization and Change in Research Centres (1987), and Real Science: What It Is, and What It Means (2000). Ziman was also involved in the Council for Science and Society, for which he was chair from 1976 until 1990, and was chair of the European Association for the Study of Science and Society from 1982 until 1986.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Daily Telegraph (London, England), February 17, 2005.

Guardian (London, England), February 2, 2005, p. 29.

Times (London, England), February 1, 2005, p. 54.