Richard Allan Ferrell, 79; Researched Nuclear, Solid-State Physics

Richard Allan Ferrell, 79, an emeritus physics professor at the University of Maryland who researched nuclear and solid-state physics, died Nov. 14 at his home in University Park, Md. He had multiple myeloma.

Ferrell joined the university’s faculty in 1953 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship with German physicist Werner Heisenberg at the Max Planck Institute of Physics, then based in Goettingen, Germany. His initial interests were in nuclear physics and explaining why carbon-14 has a long half-life, a feature critical to its utility in carbon dating.

By the time he became a full professor in 1959, he began to focus on the tools of nuclear physics to study solids and liquids. He helped found and lead the condensed matter theory group in the physics department. For the past few years, he had studied cosmic strings -- an exotic form of matter of possible interest to astrophysicists.

Ferrell was born in Santa Ana and was a Navy veteran of World War II. In the late 1940s, he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Caltech. He earned a doctorate in physics from Princeton University.