The Wallace lecture

In 2014 the Centre for Physics of Materials decided to establish a series of distinguished annual theoretical and experimental lectures. The theoretical Wallace lecture is named after Philip Russell (Phil) Wallace (April 19, 1915 - March 20, 2006). A highly influential Canadian physicist who served as a faculty member at McGill from 1946 to 1982.

Short biography of Phil Wallace (adapted from wikipedia)

P. R. Wallace was a Canadian theoretical physicist and long-time professor at McGill University. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (India). He had a distinguished career as educator, researcher, and activist in science and society, but he is increasingly well known for his pioneering paper in 1947 on the band structure of graphite, and particularly graphene (back then, only a theoretical concept).

Born in Toronto in 1915, Phil earned a Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1940 under Leopold Infeld with a thesis on electromagnetism in general relativity. Advised by L. J. Synge, then head of the Applied Mathematics Department at Toronto, to hold himself ready for war work in Canada, Phil took a two-year job at the University of Cincinnati and then moved to a lectureship at MIT. In 1943 he was recruited to join the British-Canadian Atomic Energy Project at the National Research Council of Canada's Montreal laboratory. From 1943 to 1946 Phil worked as one of an impressive group of theorists and mathematicians led by Georges Placzek on nuclear reactor fundamentals, including study of the effects on graphite and other materials of intense neutron and ion bombardment. His assignment to visit N. F. Mott in Bristol, England for several months to learn what was known about graphite led Phil to a lifelong interest in graphite and a career in condensed matter physics, not least his�1947 paper on the band structure of graphite.

When the Montreal effort moved to the Chalk River site in 1946, Phil joined the Mathematics Department at McGill University and began to build a group of young theoretical physicists there. The anomaly, at least in North America, of theoretical physicists in the Math department, not in Physics, had historic roots at McGill, dating from Ernest Rutherford's time. Rutherford's strongly expressed views solidified things at McGill for 50 years. But by the early 1960s circumstances had changed; Phil and his group moved into the Physics Department. He has documented the post-war story of the growth of a tiny number of isolated theoretical physicists in Canada, basically “outsiders,” into a viable community of “insiders,” not only at McGill.

Initially working in nuclear physics and properties of graphite, in the mid-1950s Phil turned his attention to the newly discovered positron annihilation in solids and liquids. In 1960 he published what became a standard reference in the field. His later research focused on semiconductors and semimetals, particularly their behaviour under intense magnetic fields, with regular returns to properties of graphite. In addition to summer school proceedings, in 1969 he edited two volumes on superconductivity and in 1973 he co-edited a volume on new developments in semiconductors.

Phil was a superb lecturer and mentor of students. His undergraduate course in methods of mathematical physics was inspirational. It allowed many students to see what a disciplined and well-trained mind could accomplish by applying mathematics to physical problems. More than a few careers were encouraged on their paths by Phil's course. A text based on his notes was finally published in 1973. Over his career at McGill Phil supervised over 30 graduate students to M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees, more than one third of them Ph.D.s.

Phil was active in professional affairs, a co-founder of the Canadian Association of Physicists and founder and first chair of its Theoretical Physics Division, 1957-58. He served as Editor of the Canadian Journal of Physics, 1973-80, and on numerous advisory and planning committees for conferences. At McGill he was Director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, 1966-70, and active in faculty and university affairs.

Retiring as Professor Emeritus in Physics in 1982, Phil soon became Principal of the Science College, Concordia University in Montreal, 1984-1987. In the 1990s he began writing semi-popular books explaining physics to the layperson, Physics: Imagination and Reality and Paradox Lost: Images of the Quantum. He died on March 20, 2006 in Victoria, British Columbia of complications of old age.