Friedel Sellschop


Jacques Pierre Friederich Sellschop was a South African scientist and pioneer in the field of applied nuclear physics.

Early life and education

Sellschop was born in Luderitz, Namibia on 8 June 1930. He was educated at University of Pretoria and Stellenbosch University, and earned a PhD in Nuclear Physics at University of Cambridge. On completing his education in England, he returned to South Africa on the advice of Basil Schonland, his mentor.

Contributions to neutrino research

In February 1965, Sellschop was part of a group which identified the first neutrino found in nature, in one of South Africa's gold mines. The experiment was performed in a specially prepared chamber at a depth of 3 km in the ERPM mine near Boksburg. A plaque in the main building commemorates the discovery. The experiments also implemented a primitive neutrino astronomy and looked at issues of neutrino physics and weak interactions.

Contributions in diamond physics

Sellschop was an expert in the physics of diamonds. His research here was very broad. As a member of the CERN NA43 and NA59 collaborations,
 he contributed to experiments that used the perfect and very rigid diamond lattice to produce and study the highest energy near monochromatic photons ever produced in a laboratory. He was an important contributor to the field of nuclear geochemistry in diamond, evidencing the trace-element composition of natural diamond and linking this to mantle geochemistry. Diamonds are seen as "messengers from the deep", assumed to bring included mantle material to the surface well preserved in a chemical and physical prison. He also studied ion-implantation of diamond and was a pioneer of diamond as an ideal material for electrical and optical applications.
He received the Max Planck medal for his work in both neutrino and diamond physics.

Contributions to the scientific community

Friedel Sellschop is remembered as an innovative and visionary scientific leader. He contributed both to his university and country. From 1959 to 1988, Sellschop served as the University of Witwatersrand's chair of Nuclear Physics, the first person to hold such a chair in all of South Africa. In this capacity, as a young man, he began from nothing and developed a significant nuclear physics laboratory and research department. He was therefore the founding director of the Nuclear Physics Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand in 1956. This laboratory was later renamed the Schonland Centre for Nuclear Sciences. In 2005, the Schonland Centre was donated to the state to be run as a National Facility by iThemba LABS.
Sellschop was Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1979 to 1983. He subsequently became Deputy Vice Chancellor from 1984 to 1996. In this position, from which he retired, Sellschop assisted in creating funding policies and procedures that would ensure transparency in awarding research money.
A list of some of his positions in service to the community follow
Friedel Sellschop authored over 300 publications in international peer reviewed journals. A selection of these follow.
Friedel Sellschop held five honorary doctorates.
A selection of his Honours and awards reads as follows.
Sellschop died peacefully on 4 August 2002.

Footnotes