Jacques Pierre Friederich (Friedel) Sellschop (8 June 1930 – 4 August 2002) 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 (BSc) and Stellenbosch University (MSc), 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 (Research) 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
Special Advisor to the Minister, Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology 1994–1998 South African Association for the Advancement of Science, member of council 1958–2002, Executive President 1970–1972 Joint Council of Scientific Societies of South Africa, president 1971–1972, vice-president 1991–1993, president 1993–1995, past-president (on the council) 1995–2002 South African Institute of Physics, president 1995–1997, honorary membership 1998 on. Associated Scientific & Technical Societies of South Africa, controlling executive 1958–2002, senior vice-president 1996, president 1997/8 The Royal Society of South Africa, member of the council 1994–2002, vice-president, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, president (Transvaal Branch) 1994, president 1999–2002 National Advisory Council on Innovation, appointed by the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, 1998–2002.