Robert W. Cahn - General

General

Despite his very specialised expertise, Cahn was an intellectual polymath of the old school who pushed hard for the integration of scientific and artistic skills. At Birmingham he organised a well received Art in Science exhibition, at Sussex he was on the governing committee of the Science Policy Research Unit, and he became external examiner for the Liberal Studies in Science course at Manchester University. A very widely read man, he was as able to hold forth on literature and art as on science.

Cahn was notable for his international range of contacts and the support he gave to the development of international links to promote the development of metallurgy and materials science in developing countries. From 1955 he contributed to the development of metallurgy in Argentina, and made repeated visits to the research centre established in San Carlos de Bariloche in the Andes. Later he developed close links with Indian metallurgy and materials science, through former researchers in his departments at Bangor and Sussex, and in his final years his contribution to Chinese metallurgy was recognised with honorary membership of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1991.

Cahn died of myelodysplasia induced leukemia on 9 April 2007 in Cambridge. His four children include Sir Andrew Cahn, formerly chef de Cabinet of European Commissioner Neil Kinnock and now Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment, and Alison Cahn, formerly a respected producer of television documentaries.