Dr. Herbert Leaderman was born in London, England in 1913. He began his university studies in 1934 and went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree
from the University of London and a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors from the University of Cambridge. He served as an Assistant to the Director of Aero Research Limited
in the area of plastic research and development from 1936 to 1937. After this, he attended MIT as a traveling fellow thanks to a Robert Blair Fellowship from the London
County Council. For his S.M. studies, Leaderman conducted research related to creep and viscoelasticity of Bakelite under Alfred V. de Forest. Leaderman completed his
S.M. thesis in Mechanical Engineering in 1938.
Leaderman decided to further his graduate studies by continuing research at MIT, this time under Edward R. Schwarz, a professor in Textile Technology within the mechanical
engineering department. After earning his Ph.D. in 1941, Leaderman worked at MIT as a Research Assistant in Physics. Meanwhile, he continued to collaborate with de Forest,
as evidenced by their 1940 and 1941 publications. Leaderman moved to MIT’s Radiation Laboratory in 1943, during World War II, and stayed there until 1946. He then spent two
years working at the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company before joining the National Bureau of Standards physics group in 1948.
Leaderman’s research focused on polymer physics and rheology. During his time as a master’s student, he began investigating the validity of the Boltzmann Superposition Principle
for cases in which Bakelite, the first synthetic plastic, creeps. He continued this research during his Ph.D. exploring the use of time-temperature shifting to significantly
extend the range of time scales that could be explored. While he contributed much value to the general body of research on the creep and flow of rubbers and fibers, his method
of reduced variables for time-temperature superposition remains to this day particularly valuable to the field of rheology.
Outside of the lab, Leaderman was heavily involved with policy and teaching initiatives. He served with both the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics and the Office of
Scientific Research and Development. Additionally, he spent a few months teaching at the University of Akron in 1947 and, over the course of his career, received two Fulbright
Fellowships which he used to teach in the Netherlands and Japan. Leaderman was a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the Society of Rheology, and former chairman
of the American Physics Society’s Division of High-Polymer Physics. The rheological community continues to benefit from his work on high temperature creep effects in polymers
and the method of reduced variables for time-temperature superposition (TTS).
Sources
Herbert Leaderman. Physics Today 1965, 18(8), 82.
New Members of the Academy. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 1952, 42(2), 59.
Brinson, L. C.; Brinson, H. F. In Polymer Engineering Science and Viscoelasticity: An Introduction; Springer: Boston, MA, 2008; pp 449–453.
Photo Credit
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.