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Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Andrew Soward
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Paul Roberts was a physicist and applied mathematician. He made important and often pioneering contributions in diverse research areas, but mainly with a fluid dynamic theme, which include rotating fluids, geophysical and astrophysical flows and superfluids. The cornerstone was magnetohydrodynamics with particular application to the geodynamo. His most notable achievement was the first 3-dimensional self-consistent numerical geodynamo model, which built on the equations he had derived previously governing the Earth’s core dynamics. His considerations included the role of thermal and compositional convection, and the inner core boundary layer (a mixed phase region). In addition to his remarkable illustration of magnetic field reversals, he applied his model to core-mantle coupling and variations in the length of the day. Paul investigated superfluid liquid Helium on two fronts. He began and continued all his life with Bose-Einstein Condensates (microscale and nonlinear Schrodinger equation). However, his early work on the robust derivation of the mean-field (macroscale, Hall-Vinen-Bekharevic-Khalatnikov) equations was way ahead of its time. Their importance and relevance was not appreciated till much later.
Author(s): Soward AM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
Year: 2024
Volume: 76
Pages: 363-387
Print publication date: 01/04/2024
Online publication date: 29/11/2023
Acceptance date: 02/04/2018
Date deposited: 07/10/2024
ISSN (print): 0080-8606
Publisher: The Royal Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.2023.0019
DOI: 10.1098/rsbm.2023.0019
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