Benjamin Abeles

Early life and education Born in Vienna in 1925 as Bedrich Abeles, to an Ashkenazi Jewish family. His mother Selma was of Austrian Jewish origins. Abele's father, Ernst, came from a well-to-do Czech Jewish family. Abeles lived in Czechoslovakia from 1934. In July 1939, aged 14, he was one of hundreds of Jewish children brought from Prague to London through the efforts of British humanitarian Nicholas Winton, an example of the various Kindertransport missions that saved many such children from the impending dangers of World War II and the Holocaust. At age 15, he worked as a waiter and took correspondence courses in English, mathematics, physics and chemistry. When he was 18, Abeles served as a mechanic in the war as part of No. 311 Squadron RAF.

Career Following the award of his PhD, Abeles worked in Israel on germanium electronics before moving to the United States to carry out research in Princeton for the Radio Corporation of America. and were inducted into the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991. Abeles's 65th birthday in 1990 was marked by a symposium in his honour: 'Physical Phenomena in Granular Materials'. He retired in 1995, and subsequently lived predominantly in the UK.