Talk:Robert Hanbury Brown

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His name[edit]

I always understood he was known by his middle name Hanbury, just as Edward Gough Whitlam is always called Gough except in the most formal of contexts. That alone suggests we should move this to Hanbury Brown.

In Early Years, we're told "Robert" was born in India. Some time during Career he becomes Hanbury Brown. After that it's our good friend "Hanbury". (We should never write articles as if the subject is/was our personal friend on a first-name basis, even if he is/was. )

In Publications, the first mentioned book is attributed to "Hanbury Brown and Twiss". That suggests that Hanbury Brown was an unhyphenated double-barrelled surname. Yet elsewhere he's referred to as just Brown, which matches the first-name appellation Hanbury. The defaultsort is set to "Brown, Robert Hanbury".

On the other hand, there's the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, shortened to HBT, in which article he is always referred to as Hanbury Brown, never just Brown; whereas Twiss is just Twiss. That adds weight to the double barrelled surname theory.

In summary, it's very unclear just exactly what his surname was. Can anyone in the know shed any light on this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:20, 4 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

His obituary makes it clear that he went by his middle name Hanbury, so his surname is just Brown. http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/55/7/10.1063/1.1506758 — Preceding unsigned comment added by BruceThomson (talk • contribs) 05:51, 4 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Boffin[edit]

"Sir Robert Watson-Watt attributes the invention of the word 'Boffin' to [G P] Chamberlain and suggests I was the prototype. I don't remember if that is true, but I would like to think so."

R Hanbury Brown : Boffin - A personal story ISBN 0-7503-0130-9 Adam Hilger 1991, p57 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roland Pease (talk • contribs) 12:32, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]