Person: Obada, Abdel-Shafy
Abdel-Shafy Obada is an Egyptian mathematician who has made important contributions to quantum field theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- His scientific papers which were written in English, however, all use the form "Obada", so we will use that form throughout this biography.
- The university was one year old when Obada began studying there in 1958.
- For his doctoral research, Obada attended the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) beginning his studies in 1964.
- Let us be strictly accurate and explain that when Obada arrived at UMIST it was in fact named the Manchester College of Technology.
- It was renamed the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1966 while Obada was studying there.
- He had been appointed to UMIST as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics in 1960 and was promoted to reader in 1967, the year that Obada completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics.
- Obada's thesis was entitled Mathematical treatment of microscopic optics.
- During this year he published five papers: Microscopic Theory of the Einstein optical scattering equations (1968) was co-authored with R K Bullough, B V Thompson (also from the Department of Mathematics at UMIST) and F Hynne (from the H C Orsted Institutet in Copenhagen); and the four papers Optical propagators and properties of the finite molecular crystal (1969), Dielectric constants for the cubic molecular crystal (1969), The binding energy of molecular crystals (1969) and Longitudinal modes and optical rotation in the finite molecular crystal (1969) which were all 2-author works by Obada and Bullough.
- In 1969 Obada returned to Egypt where he was appointed as a Lecturer in Mathematics in the Faculty of Science of Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
- It was not long before Obada was back in Manchester, for he spent his first summer vacation, July-August 1970, at the 1st Symposium on Quantum Optics held in Manchester.
- Between January and April 1972, Obada was at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Italy.
- In 1982 Obada became an Associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and continued in this role until 1995, making research visits to the Centre in ten of these fourteen years.
- Obada quickly gained an outstanding reputation in Egypt and in the rest of the world, and he was known as the successor to Ali Mostafa Mosharrafa.
- Obada was appointed to the Department of Mathematics and he worked there for four years.
- Obada has produced a remarkable number of publications, almost all working with colleagues many being part of the research school he built, but there was a spell after he left Manchester when he published very little.
- As well as these scientific papers, written in English, Obada was also writing textbooks in Arabic.
- We have mentioned 1984 several times in the above and this is because in that year Obada was appointed as Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Education, Umm-Al Qura University, Taif, Saudi Arabia.
- Obada spent five years in the Department of Mathematics of Umm-Al Qura University in Taif and was able to supervise the establishment and building up of the Department of Mathematics.
- Obada played a large role in the founding of the Egyptian Mathematical Society in 1992.
- Volume 1 of the Journal of the Egyptian Mathematical Society appeared in 1993 with Obada as the Editor-in-Chief.
- In 1994 Obada was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of Manchester.
- Among the many awards and prizes given to Obada, we mention his election as a fellow of the Egyptian Academy of Sciences (1995), as a fellow of the British Institute of Physics (2000), as a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (2001), and as an elected member of the Academy of Arabic Language (2013).
- In the seventies and eighties Obada and co-workers produced papers devoted to reaction field theory that played a fundamental role in the radiation theory since it was first introduced by Lorentz (1909).
- Professor Obada and his group have published significant papers in the fields of quantum optics, quantum information, and quantum computation.
- Finally we note that there is an Obada Prize.
- Initiated as a recognition of his excellence Professor Abdel-Shafy Obada.
- The Obada-Prize recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms.
Born 20 November 1942, Sanbo, Dairout, Assiut, Egypt.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Egypt
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- @J-J-O'Connor
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
