Brian’s Memorial
9th July 1953 to 18th May 2020
Brian died at home in Rhodes early on Monday 18th May 2020, the very day that I was finally flying back to Greece. I had travelled to London in February to support my sister, whose own husband died on 18th March. Subsequently all flights had been cancelled. Brian and I had been looking forward to seeing each other after 3 months apart.
Here and in the next posts his colleagues from his working life have put together a memorial of a brilliant mind. Thanks to Andrew Smith especially for helping me compile these memories and supplying photos.
Brian Varley – Career History
1971 – 1974
Degree in Physics at The University of Manchester
1974 – 1977
PhD in Physics at The University of Manchester
1977 – 1980
Post Doc at McGill University, Montreal, Canada
1980 – 2009
Research Fellow, Experimental Nuclear Physics Group, The University of Manchester
2009 – 2020
Ocean Sailor and Explorer, Chief Engineer and 1st Mate of Sailing Yacht Alixora with Rosemary, his wife
Brian’s early career is summarised here by Kim Lister
I first met Brian when we were both graduate students; I was at Liverpool and Brian at Manchester. We both attended a NATO sponsored summer school in St Andrews in Scotland, maybe 1976. Brian had built a gas-jet radioactive transport system for his PhD project using the old Manchester Linac, with Bill Gelletly as his advisor. Our ways parted for a while, 1977 to 80 as I went to a Post Doc at Brookhaven and Brian and Rose went to McGill in Canada. However, I came back to a Post-Doc at Manchester at the same time as Brian and for the next 10 years we worked very closely. Our appointments were to use the new NSF Daresbury facility, but it did not work very well at the beginning, and we were young and impatient, so did experiments at Oxford, Brookhaven, McGill, and Rochester in the first few years.
My best Brian story is from the summer of 1980. He and I went to Brookhaven in New York for a few weeks of experiments, and then Rose, I think, flew to McGill and picked up their old Volvo and drove down to get us and our equipment so we could do some experiment in Canada. On the way back the car started making funny noises and jumping out of gear. As soon as we got settled in Montreal where we were staying I went off to sleep, but Brian dropped the engine out and when I woke up was dismantling the gearbox. Within a few hours he had found a broken bearing. Rose had researched the project and found where to buy a new bearing for about $10, and so they had the car working again in no time. We then went into the lab, where the cyclotron was broken, but Brian was held in such awe that the accelerator technicians allowed him to take over, find a leak, fix it, pump out the cyclotron and get into the pub before closing time. All in a day’s work.
Brian was technically gifted. Really gifted. He was one of the few people I knew who could really think things through, and using simple ideas from undergraduate physics, logic, and common sense, could figure out what could and could not work. We would build experiments, which did not work, then in the evenings he would just sit and think about what we had done, often till late, late in the night, and by the next day could explain what was going wrong and what we needed to do better. He was one of the few people who was largely self-taught and could learn new things just from reading and thinking. He only slept a few hours a night, which gave him time.
We both had experience of heavy-ion reactions at BNL and McGill and were interested in exotic nuclei. We knew that experiments that were more sophisticated that the current state of affairs were needed to reach out to real exotica. I knew conceptually what needed doing, but Brian could build experiments and make them work. From somewhere (Liverpool?) we borrowed some neutron counters and took them to Brookhaven and used neutron-gamma coincidences to look at weak reaction channels. This was an instant success. We were lucky as straightaway we found new nuclei which were extremely deformed. I don’t know why it had not been done before, it was not too hard. But straightaway we were in world-class Physical Review Letters territory. You can tell it was good as people are still doing the same basic experiment forty years later.
Honestly, the rest is history. We were flying and could get grants of our own and could work independently of the established Manchester group, though Bill Gelletly and Bill Phillips were supportive ….. Bill Phillips unstintingly. Daresbury started working. Brian built a huge neutron wall with about thirty home-built neutron counters and integrated them. We used silicon telescopes to count the charged particles. The Liverpool group built a CAMAC module which could allow very sophisticated event selection in real time, and Brian found new ways to sort that data. He realized a shortcoming was the events all needed timestamping with TDCs, to understand “random” backgrounds, but the Daresbury group would not support them. Fortunately for us, the first really good BGO Compton Suppressors were developed by the Liverpool groups and we shamelessly used all the stuff we could get. Arthur James from Liverpool built a beautiful recoil separator but we knew what to do with it and pretty much took it over; Brian realizing how it could eclipse our neutron work, and I in trying to pull people into the group as we were haemorrhaging data. We should have published three times more than we did …. but we were far and away the most prolific group in Manchester, even in the UK, so at the time we were pretty relaxed about what we chose to publish. Fortunately for me, Brian was not mad keen on conferences, so I got to travel a lot to tell everyone what we were doing, and so there are lots of conference proceedings. I regret we did not write any NIM papers about the technical side, as in no time at all other people were building similar equipment.
Parenthetically, Brian, with Derek Dongray, at Manchester developed sorting and data analysis packages for a SUN workstation, which as new technology then. At the time, there was a big national nuclear data acquisition effort employing dozens of people, using British main-frame computers and all centred at Daresbury. This was a well-intentioned national plan, but flawed. The Manchester project was seen as total heresy, and really attacked politically, but within a few years, the whole world was using workstations of the SUN system type. But this was just a hobby for Brian. He was visionary as to what was to come and how to make it happen. I should say in this project, and others, Bill Phillips was always totally supportive and defended Brian from the establishment.
It was all too good to last. I was offered a job at Yale, and for me that was that. Leaving Brian and Manchester was a big mistake, as Brian made the space for me to shine. I was just the salesman and was good at seeing opportunity and selling physics ideas. But he made me feel like I could walk on water. Without him, I did OK at Yale, and then at Argonne, but struggled to make things work at the level he did so effortlessly. Brian had taught me a lot, and by working at team building I could cover some of my shortcomings. But it was never as much fun.
Brian was smart. The real scientist at Manchester Nuclear was Bill Phillips. Bill was interested in Fission Fragments, so Brian turned his expertise in that direction, building a Channel Plate tracking system and a series of ever-larger and more sophisticated ion chambers. He built me a system for the Argonne Fragment Mass Analyser. In the end I went in a slightly different path, as Brian’s position readout wire plane was very delicate to set up, and very hard to get a “flat” response. SO I found a California company who were very helpful, and I went there and they taught me to handle and load the channel plates (though their (very easy to use) resistive readout plane cost $20,000 with a set of plates.
In fact, the plates are not too hard to handle, just like the thin glass they are. You need to clamp down to make good contact, and so have to be hyperdilligent to make sure you are not crushing a corner or edge, but with care (and rubber gloves) it is not hard. I and my students, handled dozens of 150mm x 100mm plates … which are a few thousand dollars each. The bigger plates do need more care, but after all are just very delicate glass, not magic.
FiFi @ ILL Grenoble 2005
This allowed fission-fragment tagging in the way we had done so successfully in neutron-deficient nuclei. For more efficiency, several time of flight arms were built, culminating in the FIFI system, which, together with the ever-larger gamma arrays led to another branch of nuclear structure which is still pursued to this day. Bills group did publish prolifically, so Brian is on a lot of fission fragment papers. Bob Chapman get a grant from GANIL in France, so Brian was also commissioned to build a huge ion chamber for them too.
G-Factors @ ILL Grenoble 2003
But I think in the bigger picture (well mine anyway), Bill Phillips, and Bill Gelletly and certainly John Durell, all treated Brian as a gifted technician, and not a great scientist. They used his experimental skills but did not draw him into the science of what they were doing, so missed his deep perception and vision as to what was possible and what was not. Had they treated him as an equal, which he was, (and more), they would have gone further and higher.
Brian’s later career in designing and building detectors is summed up here.
Brian’s particular skill and expertise was in the construction of purpose-built detectors for the counting and identification of fission fragments and relatively slow-moving heavy-ions. This construction required the development of gas-filled detectors that needed rather thin foil windows and careful gas flow control. The detectors he developed were used primarily to explore the properties of neutron-rich nuclei produced in both the fission process and in heavy-ion reactions. Brian was also responsible in many of the experiments in which he was involved in building up the sophisticated electronics and data acquisition systems needed to perform the research. His detectors were used in many of the world’s leading Nuclear Physics research institutes. – John Durell
I first met Brian in the 1980s when I worked as a technician on the 6mev Van der Graaf accelerator. Brian would quietly drift in and out again after using the mainframe computer in the evenings. I started to work exclusively as Brian’s technician in 1990 until my retirement in 2006, and we worked together on many of his Heavy Ion and Fission Fragment detectors which were masterpieces of ingenuity and complexity, like a spider’s web of fragile wires and incredibly thin membranes of silvered plastic film.
Brian was a true experimental scientist with a Hands On way of doing things. This of course made my job so much easier because he knew the technical aspects of the experiments as well as me, and if things did not go right, which often happens with experiments about experiments, he would just drift off out to think about it and then come back in with some brilliant solution. Brian was very calm to work with and for, especially when I made a mistake or broke something he never ranted or raved with me he just helped me fix things again without fuss or complaint, so unlike a boss he made me feel just like a colleague and a friend. – Dave Jones
I worked with Brian and the Manchester team in a snowy Jyväskylä using the detector systems that they were so famous for and which Brian put together (particle gas detectors) and set up. These detectors looked pretty much like the inside of a piano with hundreds of thin wires, and of course all of Brian’s handy-work which was certainly a labour of love even though he didn’t mention it.
MWPC- EUROBALL-2
MWPC- GREAT-2
He was also very hesitant when the other scientists (especially the “foreign ones”) had to use it. There were a few good measurements when Brian could stand back and watch his handy work being used, and some sad moments when a local colleague of mine pressed the wrong button, opened a valve and the beautiful instrument had more of its insides out than in.
Brian shrugged his shoulders, got on with re-wiring the detector and in a couple of days all was working again. Brian enjoyed talking about his pending retirement and I am sure had many a happy day.
A decade later, working with a PhD student of mine on some detector development, I was extremely surprised to find some work by B.J. Varley et. al from McGill University in Canada. Some of the measurements and simulations results have been invaluable in my research it is refreshing to see them in the doctoral work of the next(-next) generation of young researchers. A nice legacy. – Pete Jones
I met Brian as a lowly PhD student in the late 1980’s. In fact, our first interaction was me having to ask him to help me fix a computer in the Linac building that in my ignorance I had broken – Brian was not very happy at all! I got to know him better when I came back to Manchester as a lecturer in the mid 90’s and worked with him on several projects. He was immensely talented in the dark arts of building detectors and getting experiments to work – we’d spend many late evenings and into the night working on troublesome kit in a range of unusual places – Chicago, San Francisco, Strasbourg, Italy, Finland. Invariably it was Brian who got things fixed and working. which meant that we could always find some time later in the week to share a beer in a local hostelry! – Sean Freeman
I got to know Brian when working with him in the mid-1990s on experiments to measure the electromagnetic properties of excited states in fission fragments. This followed on from the work of Bill Phillips who was starting to use large arrays of Ge detectors to look at the level schemes of neutron-rich nuclei, populated naturally in fission. It was a simple step to imagine experiments that allowed more detailed measurements on these excited states, but it was much less simple to design and build the kit. Brian was phenomenal in coming up with solutions to technical problems and was crucial in turning my rough sketches into realistic experiments.
Test Chamber
When he was assembling apparatus you really needed to watch and learn; Brian would get on and fix things, not always saying what he was doing, but was always happy to explain if you showed interest and took the time to ask. He was a big advocate for physicists spending time in lab in order to really understand their experiments and this has left a lasting impression on me and has certainly shaped my career and interests. On a few occasions we drove the old nuclear van to Strasbourg and Grenoble – not a job for the faint of heart as the van was notoriously unstable and would no doubt be banned under current legislation! These journeys were made much more interesting as Brian took on the job of providing the musical accompaniment. While concentrating on keeping the van going in a straight line down the long French Auto routes, he would play from a large selection of cassette tapes (the origins of this van probably predate CDs by a decade), mainly of late 60’s West-Coast musicians; Captain Beefheart was one, if I remember correctly…So there was an education in Rock as well as in Physics on these experimental campaigns.
Thinking back, I seem to have broken a few bits of his kit but the most spectacular was when we completely destroyed an ion chamber at the ILL. This (for once) we did together. We brought the detector into the reactor hall, forgetting about the negative pressure difference to atmosphere. Opening the first valve resulted in a very audible pop and a few seconds before the realization of what had happened dawned! Needless to say Brian just shrugged his shoulders and got on with replacing the bits and thereby avoiding what would have been a catastrophic start to an experiment. That was Brian: Knowledgeable, versatile and clever. A true experimentalist: to work with him was always an education. – Gavin Smith
FiFi @ Lohengrin ILL
In 1999 my first impression of Brian was he was an aged hippy mature student. I didn’t realise he would become a great friend and mentor generously sharing his knowledge, expertise and experience. As I had been in industry for over 15 years before joining the University Brian brought me back on track when I strayed offline due to the sometimes frustrating relaxed practices of the University. Over my first year with me working hard and introducing the new 3D solid modelling CAD software Pro-Engineer to Manchester I slowly earned the respect of Brian. Brian was always willing to investigate, listen to new ideas and think in engineering design terms and a more formal approach to design documentation. I did hear the phrase “We’ve never had an assembly drawing before” several times.
Brian was also so supportive with John Durell’s wish to make me an ambassador for Design work at Manchester. Brian guided me through the various overseas Project meetings and the pros and cons of travel. His advice to always order the strangest sounding beer so no-one in finance would recognise it has stuck with me.
However, the most important rule he gave me was never ever open a valve unless you know what it does and to do it very, very slowly. After 20 years I have never trashed a gas window or a MWPC unlike every academic at Manchester. He had similar rules when handling glass micro-channel plates.
We did have a midnight heart to heart talk while we were on a trip to Legnaro in Italy when we drove ‘onto’ Venice for the afternoon. Brian said that he would bust his gut getting the experiment working and the Seagulls would fly in grab the glory and fly off leaving Brian to pick up all the pieces
Lastly it was a pleasure to support Brian in his early sailing days offering advice and the odd stainless steel screw or copper plate for improvements to Brian and Rose’s yacht. – Andy Smith
I first met Brian at the job interview when he showed me around the Nuclear Physics lab – from that moment I knew I had to get the job! I came from an electronics test and repair background, so radiation detection and measurement was completely new to me. Brian trained me on all aspects of working in the lab, for example, how to make the wire grids required for BRAGG / MWPC detectors (patience and calm required!), vacuum engineering and the delights of leak testing, also the set-up, operation and repair of Germanium detectors and of course not forgetting the eternal struggle against electronic noise!!
He had a wealth of knowledge about the design and operation of the detectors and how to get the best out of them – he has been sorely missed. He left a few old logbooks when he retired which I have used and have proved incredibly helpful!!! I will be forever grateful to him, as working in the lab has made a huge positive impact on my life over the last 13 years. Thanks Brian. – Andy McFarlane
I first met Brian on an experiment in Chicago. I very quickly learned why Sean had deemed it so important that Brian was there. I am convinced his expertise on the set-up we were using was crucial to helping me get one of the best data sets I have ever seen. I got to know Brian over the following years through a number of experiments at Legnaro National Laboratory in Italy, where Brian showed his characteristics as a true experimentalist outside the lab as well. On one occasion, while out for dinner, none of us could translate much of the Italian menu. While the rest of us played it safe, Brian forged ahead and ordered an unknown pizza, which turned up covered in a dark red meat, shredded into long thin strips. As Brian sniffed at the dish set before him, and then took a bite, he nonchalantly exclaimed: ‘I think this is horse.’ Whatever his misgivings, he stuck with his choice and ate the lot. – Alick Deacon
Experiments Brian developed at Manchester University
Brian’s particular skill and expertise was in the construction of purpose-built detectors for the counting and identification of fission fragments and relatively slow-moving heavy-ions. This construction required the development of gas-filled detectors that needed rather thin foil windows and careful gas flow control. The detectors he developed were used primarily to explore the properties of neutron-rich nuclei produced in both the fission process and in heavy-ion reactions. His detectors were used in many of the world’s leading Nuclear Physics research institutes.
Secondary Electron Detector -Prototype
Brian was also responsible in many of the experiments in which he was involved for building up the sophisticated electronics and data acquisition systems needed to perform the research.
Brian’s initiation, input and expertise was critical to the design, development, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the experiments and equipment for the University of Manchester listed below . He was responsible for training University technical staff and students as well.
| FiFi Experiment | |
| HIPS / SUSAN Experiment with the PolyTessa Detector array at JYFL – Jyvaskyla, Finland | |
| 1995- 2002 | Velocity Filter Experiment at IReS Laboratory in Strasbourg, France |
| 1999-2003 | VAMOS / EXOGAM experiments at GANIL, Caen, France Bragg Spectrometer Large Vacuum Chambers Aluminium thin walled Target Chambers Collimators and support structure for the VAMOS experiment at GANIL |
| 1999-2003 | Fission Fragment Experiments using EuroBall at IReS Laboratory in Strasbourg including witnesses a total Solar Eclipse from the roof |
| 1999-2009 | Fission Fragment G-factor Apparatus used with EUROBALL at LNL Legnaro and Gammasphere at ANL, Argonne, USA |
| 2000-2006 | GREAT Experiment – MWPC at JYFL – Jyvaskyla, Finland |
| 2000-2008 | Fission Fragment Experiments using Lohengrin at ILL, Grenoble, France, Bragg Spectrometer, G Factors, FiFi Arm with micro channel plate start detector |
| 2001-2008 | PRIMA Experiment at LNFN Legnaro, Italy Secondary Electron Detector – Prototype run Secondary Electron Detector – Production |
| 2006-2009 | STEFF (SpecTrometer for Exotic Fission Fragments) Experiment at LPSC / ILL, Grenoble, France Initial Development |
| 2008-2009 | Differential Plunger apparatus at JYFL – Jyvaskyla, Finland |
Finally, some more brief personal kind words from Brian’s friends and colleagues
Apart from our sailing exploits together, including the two Channel crossings we did, my memories go back to Manchester of course. Brian as the gentle giant, the table football expert (just completely unbeatable) and frequent visitor of the Union bar, as was I, in his unvarying uniform of jeans and denim jacket. At that time, I wasn’t aware of his academic prowess. Did I tell you that a younger colleague of mine when I was working at Partnerships UK in the early 2000s, who had studied as a physicist, noticed your email address on my screen once and said – in tones of absolute awe – “do you know Brian Varley?” – Pete Impey
Brian made a very significant and lasting contribution to the Manchester nuclear physics group’s expertise and reputation in detector development and the group was seen as a reliable partner in international collaborations because of Brian’s abilities. The neutron wall experiments at Daresbury led by Brian and Kim Lister was a high-profile programme in the period just before I arrived at Manchester (it was Kim’s position I got when he left for Yale). Those neutron detectors are still in the Schuster lab and are still working when required! – Brian and Rose did the right thing in retiring early and sailing off into the sunset. They’ve lived a great life this last 11 or so years. – Jon Billowes
I enjoyed working for Brian, and still miss doing so, he retired far too early in my opinion!! (but don’t blame him!) – Andy McFarlane
I always got on well with Brian although Ron King did most of his stuff. He wasn’t what you would call a typical academic. I always thought of him as a very bright hells angel, in the nicest possible way of course. Dry, understated humour and a real harmless good egg. – John Rowcroft
My great friend and mentor. I’m truly stuck for words on how grateful I am to Brian for taking me under his wing to teach me about Experimental Physics and for allowing free reign of with my Design work. – Andy Smith
I think he must have had a good retirement on the Greek island – Dave Jones
He was a great character and physicist – John Simpson
Brian was a really good and dedicated colleague at Manchester – Bob Chapman
Brian changed my life: he changed the way I thought about things and made me aspire to bigger things. He was a gentle giant. When I first met him he told me he did not expect to live beyond 50. That he did is totally down to you, Rose. In the end he had a rich and textured life, full of achievement and happiness. He was funny too, and very good at darts – Kim Lister
Alixora 