Professor Alan Duncan

a gentleman''. All phrases that have been used to describe a long-time friend and colleague, who died suddenly while he and his wife, Irene, were on holiday in British Columbia.

Alan was born in North Berwick, and went on to graduate with a first-class honours degree in Nat-ural Philosophy from St Andrews University in 1961. By 1970 he had obtained MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University in California. He returned to Scotland in 1970 to the post of lecturer in the Physics Department at Stirling University, where his most recent appointment was to a personal chair in Experimental Physics.

It is interesting to note that the subjects in which Alan won an entrance bursary competition to

St Andrews included Latin. Although he had a great love of physics and its applications, he was certainly not narrow-minded, but was able to converse in a wide range of disciplines, especially modern and ancient history. With Scottish Presbyterian roots, he had an even greater love of his country, and eagerly followed Scotland's performances in the Five Nations Championships. In his undergraduate days, he played rugby, and won a half-blue in athletics. He was the lone Scot among the teaching staff of the Physics Department, so it is no wonder that the Declaration of Arbroath was prominently displayed on his office wall.

His contributions to physics research and teaching were wide ranging. In Stanford, his higher degree researches were in the area of plasma physics - a study of the kind of process that takes place in fluorescent tubes, and, incidentally, in most of the universe. At Stirling, he collaborated with Professor Hans Kleinpoppen on several projects in basic electron-atom collisions. One of these provided crucial tests of some fundamental predictions of quantum theory, a branch of physics that describes the behaviour of atoms, molecules, and nuclei. It may also have far-reaching implications on our

logical thinking processes, and

its principles have already been considered as the basis of a secure means of communicating information. More recently, Alan has collaborated with Professor Wilson Sibbett of the University of St Andrews, and Professor Miles Padgett, now at Glasgow University. They, in association with a number of commercial interests, have developed two optical instruments, one of which is used to extend the technology for the detection of pollutant and environmental gases. The other won joint first prize in the 1998 National Physical Laboratory ''Metrology for world class manufacturing awards'' competition. It records the profile of surfaces without any mechanical contact, a considerable advantage in the preparation of precision or ultra-clean devices. The concepts for both of these instruments arose out of the fundamental research work mentioned above. Very recently, in our Department of Biological Sciences,

Alan has been collaborating with Dr Bill Wales in the area of biological optics and vision.

Being in one of the UK's smallest, but internationally recognised physics departments, Alan contributed to all aspects of the department's teaching and administration. For 16 years he was the main organiser of the Stirling Physics Meeting, a one-day meeting that attracts more than 200 physics teachers from all over Scotland, and which is the largest of its kind in the UK. In May of this year, we had our 25th meeting and, in recognition of his efforts, Alan was presented with a crystal gift by the chairperson of the Scottish branch of the Institute of Physics, Heather Reid.

Alan's achievements have been recognised by his election to

Fellowships of the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and, a month or so ago, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers & Commerce. He will be sadly missed by friends and colleagues, but even more so by Irene and their children, Robert and Fiona.