Samuel Devons

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Samuel Devons (30 September 1914 – 6 December 2006) was a British physicist and science historian. He was born in Bangor, Wales, to David Isaac Devons and Edith Edelston. His brother was economist Ely Devons. At 16, he won a scholarship to study physics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1935 and his PhD in 1939. He married Ruth Toubkin in 1938. In 1960, he moved to the United States to work at Columbia University’s Physics Department. He had four daughters and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

During World War II, Devons served as a senior scientific officer in the British Air Ministry and related ministries, working on anti-aircraft systems, microwaves, and radar. He was a liaison officer with the United States at MIT’s Radiation Laboratory. After the war, he worked as a British intelligence officer in Germany, helping interview surrendered scientists. He was awarded the Rutherford Medal and Prize in 1970 and, in 2005, was honored for 50 years as a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died in Westchester, New York, in 2006 at the age of 92.