THE BIOGRAPHY OF ALEXANDERANIMALU
He was born on August 28, 1938, the fifth child to Mr. Michael Animalu
Nwakudu and Mrs. Josephine Nkenwa in Okuzu,
Oba of Idemili South
L.G.A. of
Anambra State of Nigeria, and attended St. Paul’s CMS
Church School, Isu-Oba (1943–44); St. Thomas’s CMS Church School, Okuzu
(1944–45) , CMS Central School, Isu-Oba (1945–51), Dennis Memorial Grammar
School (1952–56) for secondary education and (1957–58) for Higher School
Certificate. He then attended
University College, Ibadan (1959–1962) where
he was taught by Professor Chike Obi and Professor James Ezeilo. Professor
Animalu graduated with B.Sc. (Maths) and won the Faculty of Science Prize for
the best performance for two consecutive years. He also won the Crowe's Prize
on Abstract Algebra and Theory of Numbers and the University College
Postgraduate Scholarship.
It was this College Scholarship that saw him through the
University of Cambridge in the UK between
October, 1962 and December, 1965 when he obtained the M.A. (Cantab) and Ph.D.
(Maths) in Theoretical Solid State Physics. The high quality of his Ph.D.
thesis was attested to, when the main results were published in the
Philosophical Magazine in 1965 and
included in W.A. Harrison's book entitled "Pseudopotentials in the Theory
of Metals".
[3]
The book contained the model potential tables which were in such high demand by
researchers in the field of metal physics and semiconductor electronics that
the Ph.D. thesis work as published in
Philosophical Magazine became by
1983, a citation classic, having been cited more than 729 times between 1965
and 2001.
[4]
He is the only African in Physics to have earned such a record of citations,
his paper being the best among the best twelve cited papers from the University
of Cambridge in fifty years (1930–1980). It is of interest to note that four of
these twelve most cited works from Cambridge have subsequently won the Nobel
Prize in Physics.
Between January, 1966 and December, 1967, Prof. Animalu was Research
Associate in Division of Applied Physics,
Stanford University and between January, 1968
and August, 1968, he was a visiting scientist at the Department of Physics,
University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. In September, 1968, he was appointed Assistant Professor of
Physics at the
University of Missouri, Rolla. His
research work was in solid state and elementary particle physics. In 1970, he
moved to
Drexel University in Pennsylvania, as Associate
Professor of Physics. A major breakthrough in his career came in April 1972
when he was appointed a research physicist, at the
Lincoln Laboratory of
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (M.I.T.) working under H.J. Zeiger and
J.B. Goodenough on research projects related to
development of computer core memory and primarily on the development of the
transition-metal model potential, thus extending his Ph.D. thesis area to now
include all elements of the
periodic
table. It was within this period that he completed his principal book,
Intermediate
Quantum Theory of Crystalline Solids published by Prentice-Hall in 1977. It
became a world-wide classic with an Indian Edition published by Prentice-Hall
of India in 1978. It was also translated into Russian by the
Russian Academy of Science in 1981,
reprinted in US in 1994 and is currently on the world-wide web.
After a period of teaching and research in the UK and US between 1962–1976,
he returned to Nigeria in 1976. Within a year of coming back, he began to make
contributions to the development of Nigeria.
He was invited to become a Professor of Physics in 1976 in the Department of
Physics and Astronomy,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka by his former
lecturer and the then Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Emeritus
James Ezeilo. The former Nigerian President, Chief
Olusegun
Obasanjo, presented him with the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM)
[5]
award for Basic Science in 2000. He rose in academic positions becoming Head of
Department of Physics, UNN in 1981 and 1994 and Dean, Faculty of the Physical
Sciences, UNN. His proposal to the Federal Government of Nigeria led to the
establishment of a Centre for Energy Research and Development in the UNN in
1980. He became the first substantive Chairman of its Governing Board in 1989.
The idea for a National Mathematical Center in Nigeria was hatched by Professor
Emeritus Ezeilo and Professor Emeritus Animalu. He was the 1990 Ahiajoku
lecturer, the highest
Igbo academic privilege given to such scholars as
Professor
Chinua Achebe and Professor Onwumechili. His theory
of high-temperature superconductivity based on the novelty of the pairing
mechanism for electrons was published in Hadronic Journal in 1991 and led to
his subsequent nominations for
Nobel Prize in Physics. He has trained many
Nigerians in the field of theoretical physics and solar energy and established
two youth organizations, Society for Promotion of Indigenous Inventions and
Creativity (SPIIC) and Century-21 Club.
He is interested in using geometry to investigate African culture and system
of thought, thus with Willy Umezinwa, he coauthored From African Symbols to
Physics. He has worked with one of his biographers,
Jeff
Unaegbu, on ICT as the lost but renascent and evolved language of African
system of thought in the 21st century and the dialogue between western and
African worldviews. He is currently using geometric thought processes to
investigate African multilingualism and Igbo artifacts, origins and system of
thought, especially as seen as ancestral to Adam in the works of Professor
Catherine Obianuju Acholonu. Professor
Animalu has more than 80 scholarly articles to his credit.
“AND HE MADE A MOLTEN
SEA, TEN CUBITS FROM THE ONE BRIM TO THE OTHER: IT WAS ROUND ALL ABOUT, AND ITS
HEIGHT WAS FIVE CUBITS: AND A LINE OF THIRTY CIBITS DID COMPASS IT ROUND ABOUT”
