Obituary of William Frank Hornyak

William (Bill) Frank Hornyak, Professor Emeritus of Physics of the University of Maryland, College Park, died on August 14, 2006, three years after having suffered a major stroke. During his long career, Bill made major contributions to nuclear physics and later to archeological dating using thermoluminescence techniques.

Bill Hornyak was born in New York City on August 4, 1922 and was raised in very modest circumstances. From these beginnings he rose to become a prominent nuclear physicist and, in the last ten years of his career, an archeometrist of distinction. Bill obtained his B. S. degree in electrical engineering from CCNY (1944) and was hired by the Westinghouse Corporation to work on a radar research program. Briefly, it seemed as if engineering was to be his profession, and combined with his hobbies of chess, painting and numismatics, he had achieved his earliest ambitions. However, two Berkeley professors serving on the project judged him to be exceptionally gifted and convinced him to pursue graduate studies. With their support he was admitted to the California Institute of Technology in 1944. There he received his M. S. in electrical engineering, and a Ph.D. (1949) in physics under the direction of the Nobelist William Fowler.

He left Cal Tech with credit for five publications in experimental nuclear physics and two review articles on the energy levels of light nuclei. This record led to an appointment in the Physics Department of Brookhaven National Laboratory where he spent four productive years in the low energy nuclear physics program. That span was marked by meritorious publications on n-p scattering cross sections, capture gammas from the proton bombardment of 9Be, and a fast neutron detector. Even more noteworthy during that interval was the fact that he met and married Eva Stern, the devoted companion of his life.

After two years at Princeton as a Lecturer he met John Toll, who had just become Chairman of the Physics Department of the University of Maryland. In 1956 Bill became one of Toll’s early recruits in his successful efforts to establish a nationally ranked department. He was initially an associate and then a full professor in charge of the Low Energy Nuclear Physics Program. His research over the next twenty-four years was committed to low and medium energy nuclear physics including the development of high precision instrumentation and techniques. In addition to publishing his results in the premier journals of nuclear physics, he served as an editor of and a contributor to Methods of Experimental Physics. His five books include the outstanding first year physics textbook Principles for Science and Engineering Students (Academic Press,1981) which he co-authored with Jerry B. Marion, and Nuclear Structure (Academic Press, 1975). The former was used with great success in the undergraduate physics classes for engineers at Maryland, particularly when Bill was the lecturer. His style was both forceful and yet easy-going making him one of the most popular and masterful teachers in the department. Bill had the distinction of sabbatical appointments at the Niels Bohr Institute, Saclay and the Eidgenossische Technische Hochscule in Zurich.

With the end of the cyclotron program at the University of Maryland, Bill shifted his physics focus to topics that intersected with his hobbies of numismatics and archeology. His first foray was as a summer participant in the archeological excavations near Caesarea Maritima, where his knowledge of ancient coins proved invaluable. He then served as Director of the University’s Center for Mediterranean Archeology during 1982-86, and as the Director of the Physics Department’s Archeometric Thermo Laboratory from1982 until his nominal retirement as professor emeritus in 1990. His research continued until his actual retirement to Scottsdale, AZ in 1993. During this second career he not only advanced the techniques of thermoluminescence measurement to highly precise levels, but also applied them with unique effectiveness to the archeometry of ceramics. His research in this field was important and internationally recognized.

Arizona’s gain was a loss not only to the scientific community of the Washington area, but also to its cultural life, as Eva had established a world-class chamber music series at the University. In Arizona Bill could focus on his painting, but science, numismatics and ancient history were never far from his thoughts. He painted a series of Roman emperors as shown in coinage; the privately published collection was available to numismatists. His final work, A Theory of Everything, written for his grandson Samuel, is a summary of his views on science.

Bill is mourned by wife Eva, children Mika and Gregor, grandson Samuel, and his many friends and admirers.

Philip G. Roos