physics

Neville Robinson

Neville Robinson is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Neville Robinson rather than just read about it. In short: Frank Neville Hosband Robinson (13 April 1925 – 19 October 1996) was an English physicist. Neville Robinson was educated at The Leys School in Cambridge, England, and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied Physics.

Key takeaways

Neville Robinson belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Neville Robinson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Neville Robinson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Frank Neville Hosband Robinson (13 April 1925 – 19 October 1996) was an English physicist. Neville Robinson was educated at The Leys School in Cambridge, England, and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied Physics. Robinson initially worked as a civil servant at the Services Electronic Research Laboratory (SERL) in Baldock, Hertfordshire, under the director Robert Sutton. He then moved to the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University to undertake a DPhil doctorate degree in low temperature physics, as a Nuffield Research Fellow (1950–54). With Jim Daniels and Michael Grace, he produced an example of nuclear orientation for the first time. Then in 1951, in the first nuclear cooling experiment, he produced the lowest temperature ever achieved until then at only ten millionths of a degree Kelvin above absolute zero. Robinson was an English Electric Research Fellow from 1955 to 1959. He was a faculty fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1958 to 1961, immediately followed by becoming a founding fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, where he stayed until his retirement in 1992. He was also a senior research officer at Oxford University during 1959 to 1992, working at the Clarendon Laboratory. During his career, he visited Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey, United States, three times while on sabbatical leave (during 1954–55, 1965–66, and 1973–74). In 1973, Robinson published the book Macroscopic Electromagnetism, a standard text. His paper Microwave shot noise and minimum noise factor was awarded the Clerk Maxwell Prize in 1954 by the British Institution of Radio Engineers. Importantly, he invented the Robinson oscillator in the field of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), which now forms the underlying basis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems used in many hospitals.

Family Robinson married Daphne Coulthard in 1952. They had three children, including author W. Andrew Robinson and diplomat Vicky Bowman. He died of a heart attack, aged 71, in Colmar, France.

References

External links Books by Neville Robinson from Amazon.co.uk

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Neville Robinson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Neville Robinson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Neville Robinson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Neville Robinson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Neville Robinson

In research: Neville Robinson appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Neville Robinson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Neville Robinson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1925 births, 1996 deaths, 20th-century English civil servants, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Neville Robinson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Neville Robinson” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Neville Robinson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Neville Robinson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Neville Robinson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Neville Robinson in simple terms?

Why does Neville Robinson matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Neville Robinson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Neville Robinson.