Boris Davison

Boris Borisovich Davison was born 7 October 1908 in Vasilsursk, Gorky Oblast, Russia.[1] He attended Leningrad State University, graduating in 1931.[2][1] He then worked at the State Hydrological Institute.

Davison's grandfather had been British, and in 1938 Davison was given a choice – either renounce his British nationality or leave the Soviet Union. He chose to emigrate to the United Kingdom.[2][1] He then briefly worked with Louis Rosenhead at the University of Liverpool but withdrew from work due to illness.[1][2]

In 1942 he joined the University of Birmingham's atomic energy research team working under Rudolf Peierls, and in 1944 the university awarded him a PhD.[2][1]

In 1943 he moved to Canada to work under George Placzek at the Montreal Laboratory of the joint British-Canadian atomic energy project.[2][1][3] In October 1945 he briefly joined the British Mission at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, part of the Manhattan Project which had just developed the atom bomb.[4] In 1946 Davison married Olga Hansen.[5]

He worked at Chalk River Laboratory in Ontario before returning to the UK in 1947 to work at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, Oxfordshire.[2][1]

In 1953 his security clearance was revoked by the British government because his parents still lived in the Soviet Union, potentially putting Davison at risk of blackmail.[6] He was given a year's leave of absence working at the University of Birmingham.[7][4] Davison then emigrated to Canada in 1954, where he took up a position at the computation centre at the University of Toronto.[3][4]

In 1957 he authored the book Neutron Transport Theory.[2]

Davison died suddenly at his home in Toronto on 24 January 1961 at the age of 52.[5][2][8]

• Boris, Davison (1957). Neutron Transport Theory. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-851207-3.
• Davison, B. (1979). Collected Papers of Boris Davison. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

• Kushneriuk, S. A. (October 1976). A Bibliography of the Publications of Boris Davison (PDF). Chalk River: Atomic Energy of Canada.