John F. (Jack) Allen (1908- )
- co-discoverer of superfluidity
- born in1908 in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- studied at the University of Manitoba, where his father was the first professor of physics
- went to graduate school in 1929 at the University of Toronto, studying under Sir John McLennan
- thesis work was on superconductivity (using liquid Helium)
- moved to Cambridge University in 1935 hoping to work with Peter Kapitsa on low temperature physics, however Kapitsa was detained in Russia under Stalin, and was unable to return to Cambridge
- the January 8, 1938 issue of Nature contained two separate letters which mark the discovery of superfluidity in liquid Helium, one was by Kapitsa, and one was by Allen and his (Canadian) graduate student Donald Misener
- soon afterwards, Allen and Harry Jones discovered the "fountain effect", in which superfluid Helium flows up a tube and shoots into the air upon being exposed to a small heat source (the heat source in the original experiment was a flashlight that they were using to look at the apparatus)
- further reading: "The Discovery of Superfluidity" by Russell J. Donnelly in Physics Today (July 1995) p. 30
a Helium fountain photographed by Allen in the 1970's
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