03 September 2025
Remembering Professor Roy Pike FRS
Tribute to Emeritus Professor Roy Pike, who passed away 24 July 2025.
The Department of Physics at King’s is deeply saddened to announce the death of Emeritus Professor Roy Pike FRS, who passed away on 24 July 2025 at the age of 95.
Professor Pike held the Clerk-Maxwell Chair for Theoretical Physics in the Department from 1986 and was the Head of the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering (now known as the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences) from 1991 to 1994.
Originally from Perth, Australia, Roy studied at the University of Oxford before moving to MIT in 1958 under a Fulbright Scholarship. He then joined the theoretical physics group of the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) at Malvern, working on thermodynamics, electrochemistry and many-body quantum theory.
He performed some of the first experiments in photon statistics and co-invented the ‘Malvern Correlator’, the first commercial laser-based, particle-size analyser, characterisation technology now ubiquitous in every nanoparticle laboratory around the world
At King’s Roy continued to work on a wide range of research with important contributions in quantum optics and the burgeoning mathematical discipline of inverse problems, founding its first Journal. His interests spanned not just theoretical physics but also experimental optics, including work on super-resolving microscopy. More recently he developed an interest in speech recognition on which he continued to work until recently. Even up to his 90th birthday, Roy continued to supervise undergraduate and PhD projects.
He received the Royal Society's Charles Parsons Medal in 1975 and was elected a Fellow in 1981. He also was awarded the Annual Achievement Award of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers (1978), the Civil Service Award to Inventors (1980), and the Institute of Physics Guthrie Medal and Prize (1995), where he was also Vice-President from 1981 to 1985.
Roy Pike was a highly original and leading figure of research in many fields, spanning fundamental physics to commercial application. The Department of Physics and Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences would like to extend his family, friends and former colleagues and students at this time.