Tony Skyrme

Tony Hilton Royle Skyrme (/skɜːrm/; 5 December 1922, Lewisham – 25 June 1987) was a British physicist. He first proposed modeling the effective interaction between nucleons in nuclei by a zero-range potential, an idea still widely used today in nuclear structure and in equation of state for neutron stars. However, he is best known for formulating the first topological soliton to model a particle, the skyrmion. Some of his most important work can be found in selected papers. Skyrme was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society in 1985.

Life

Tony Skyrme was born in Lewisham , London , the child of a bank clerk. He attended a boarding school in Lewisham and then won a scholarship to Eton public shool. He excelled at mathematics and won several prizes in the subject at the school. He went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he again excelled , he passed part one of the mathematical tripos as a wrangler in 1942, and part three in 1943 with a first class degree. While there he was president of The Archimedeans mathematics society.