University of Cape Town Physics Department
Duncan Elliott Seminar Room


The Physics seminar room (the old tea room) in the RW James Building was named the Duncan Elliott Seminar Room on 22 May 2002, at a ceremony attended by members of the Elliott family, a close friend, the Head of the UCT Naming of Buildings Committee, and the Dean of Science. Professor Jean Cleymans, the supervisor of Duncan's M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses, presented a seminar on "The work of Duncan Elliott". Professor David Aschman, Head of Physics, named the room, and Mr Dennis Elliott, Duncan's father, replied.

The citation placed on the wall reads:

DUNCAN ELLIOTT (1964 - 2000)

Student, Colleague, Friend

Duncan Mark Elliott was an undergraduate at UCT from 1986 to 1988 and obtained a B.Sc. degree (with distinction in Physics) and a B.Sc.(Hons.) in Theoretical Physics the following year. He was awarded an M.Sc. in Theoretical Physics (with distinction) in 1996, and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1999. His research work examined how one could tell whether, in ultra-high energy nuclear collisions, individual protons had been melted into a plasma of their constituent quarks and gluons.

This seminar room is dedicated to his memory because of his great love for exposition of ideas of Physics, both in teaching and learning. He was a fine teacher, capable of inspiring and stretching the best students, and also firmly guiding, encouraging and mentoring the weaker ones. He did this with energy and passion, insisting that Physics was an intellectual activity of the highest order, and exhorting those he tutored that they could succeed if they would strive for the best.

He was killed, tragically, in an ice-fall just below the summit of Huascarán, the highest peak of the Andes in Peru, on 20 July 2000.

020628.0001/dga

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