Posted on: Tuesday, 5 August 2003, 06:00 CDT
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BARRINGTON - Anthony Houghton, 67, of Mathewson Road, professor emeritus of physics at Brown University, a teacher and author who was highly acclaimed in his field, died Monday at Miriam Hospital, Providence.
Mr. Houghton became an assistant professor of physics at Brown in 1963, an associate professor of physics in 1967, and professor of physics in 1971, serving as chairman of the department from 1992 to 1998, teaching courses from premed physics, to advanced statistical mechanics, and quantum many-body theory during his 35-year career.
He retired from regular teaching at Brown last July, but remained actively involved in physics research.
Mr. Houghton was a leading researcher in the field of condensed- matter physics, authoring over 90 papers on topics including superconductivity, interacting electrons, disorder, and critical phenomena.
In a famous collaboration with Franz Wegner, he made an important early contribution to renormalization group theory.
As colleague Prof. Leon Cooper, a Nobel laureate in physics, recalls, "Tony made many contributions to physics, and to the Brown University physics department, to which he was enormously devoted. Tony did not seek headlines, and avoided publicity. He was a physicist's physicist whose work was best appreciated by his colleagues for its craftsmanship and great originality."
He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Humboldt Fellow, and had been a visiting professor at many European and American institutions, including Oxford University, the Norges Tekniske Hogskole, Trondheim, Norway, the University of Sussex, the University of Manchester, the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College, London, and the University of California at San Diego.
He held Science Research Council fellowships at the Universities of Manchester, and Sussex, and at Imperial College, and an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award at the University of Heidelberg.
He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Birmingham (UK) in 1956, and a doctorate in 1959.
He was the husband of Patricia (Sanchez) Houghton. Born in England, a son of the late George and Florence (Frost) Houghton, he came to Rhode Island in 1963, and had lived in Barrington since 1968.
Besides his wife, he leaves a sister, Pamela Deane, and two nephews, Andrew and Michael Deane, all of Toronto, Canada.
A memorial service is planned for the fall at Brown University.