Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry

Rafi Muhammad Chaudhry FPAS HI, NI, SI, Skdt (1 July 1903 – 4 December 1988) best known as R. M. Chaudhry, was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and a professor of particle physics at the Government College University. His teaching and instructions on modern physics influenced many of his student to pursue career in physics who regard him as one of the key architects of having been the pioneer of experimental nuclear physics research in Pakistan

Early life and education Chaudhry was born on 1 July 1903 to a middle-class Rajput family (Rao) in Kahnaur, a small village in Rohtak district of Eastern Punjab. He passed the university entrance exam with highest marks and earned a scholarship awarded by the Viceroy Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading. He used the scholarship to enroll as a student of chemical engineering at Aligarh University in 1923, At Cavendish, he studied with Mark Oliphant, who particularly influenced him to study nuclear physics. Chaudhry and Oliphant carried out research in artificial disintegration of the atomic nucleus and positive ions. In 1932, Chaudhry earned his D.Phil in Nuclear physics from Cambridge University with his thesis "The action of positive ions in the electrical discharge through gases" under Ernest Rutherford. In 1948, months after the partition of India into dominions of India and Pakistan, Chaudhry was in Great Britain and was contacted by Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru offered him a senior position at the National Physical Laboratory of India. Oliphant wrote a letter to the governor-general of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The letter encouraged Jinnah to engage his country in research in nuclear technology, particularly nuclear physics. Chaudhry was an instrumental figure in the installation of the 1.2 MeV Cockcroft-Walton accelerator in the High Tension Laboratory in 1954 for carrying out basic research in atomic and nuclear physics. The research carried out at the laboratory resulted in research publications in Nature and it was visited by the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in 1958.

Family of physicists Chaudhry had nine children, all of whom became physicists. and Anwar Chaudhri.

Awards Hilal-i-Imtiaz (2004) Nishan-e-Imtiaz (1998) Sitara-i-Imtiaz (1965) Sitara-i-Khidmat (1954)