Alan Neville Gent
University of Akron
November 11, 1927 – September 20, 2012
Rheologist
Awarded Bingham Medal 1975
President 1981-1983
Dr. Alan Neville Gent was born in Leicester, England on November 11, 1927. He received a degree in both mathematics and physics before receiving his PhD, all from the
University of London, in 1955. Between these degrees, he served in the British Army from 1947-1949. Gent’s doctoral research was largely carried out at the British Rubber
Producers’ Research Association (BRPRA) where he subsequently became Principal Physicist in 1958. Gent then accepted a position as professor of physics at the University
of Akron in 1961, where he worked until 1994. In 1963 he became Assistant Director of the Institute of Polymer Science. From 1978-1986, he held the position of Dean of
Graduate Studies and Research, after which he worked as the Dr. Harold A. Morton Professor of Polymer Physics and Polymer Engineering until 1994. From 1964-2002, Gent
also worked as a consultant and scientific adviser for the research division of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
Dr. Gent’s research was heavily focused on “the science and technology of rubber and allied materials” (Physics Today 1975). His research covered
a wide and diverse range of topics such as mechanisms of cohesive fracture in rubber, elastic and thermoelastic properties of rubbery materials, birefringence, nucleation
and growth of gas bubbles in elastomers, and strain-induced crystallization. In the course of his career, he published more than 200 papers on the mechanical properties of
rubber and plastics. The commonly-referenced “Payne Effect” in filled rubbers is more correctly known as the Fletcher-Gent effect, as they first studied this phenomenon in
1953. He served as the president of The Society of Rheology from 1981-1983 and president of the High Polymer Physics Division of the American Physical Society and the
Adhesion Society, of which he was a founder.
Sources
Dr. Alan Neville Gent. Akron Beacon Journal Orbituaries. Posted Sep 30, 2012.
Go to link.
In Memoriam: Alan N. Gent 1927-1012. Rheology Bulletin 2013, 82(1), 17.
Go to link.
Kinloch, A.J. In Memoriam of Alan Neville Gent. The Adhesion Society.
Go to link.
Gent is named 1975 Bingham Medalist. Physics Today 1975, 28(11), 81.
Go to link.
Rheology Bulletin Aug 1975, 44(2).
Also, Box 6, Folder 22. Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740.
Photo Credit
Gent Alan A1, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.