Sir Edward "Teddy" Crisp Bullard (21 September 1907 - 3 April 1980) was a geophysicist born into a wealthy brewing family in Norwich, England. He studied Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge^[1]. He studied under Ernest Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory of University of Cambridge and in the 1930s he received his PhD as a nuclear physicist.

As it was the Great Depression and he was married he had to find a career to survive on. In the 1930s nuclear physics did not seem to be it so he switched to geophysics. During World War II he was an experimental officer at HMS Vernon, and worked on the development of degaussing techniques to protect shipping from magnetic mines.

He became one of the most important geophysicists of his day. He also did studies of the ocean floor even though he suffered from seasickness and could rarely take scientific trips on the ocean.

He held a chair at the University of Toronto from 1948-50 and was head of the National Physical Laboratory between 1950 and 1955. He returned to Cambridge in 1955, first as an assistant in research, then as a Reader and finally to a chair created for him in 1964. He was a founding fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge

He was important to dynamo theory, hence his most important work concerned the source of the Earth's magnetic field. He was often frustrated by efforts to increase geophysical interest at the University of Cambridge. In his career he won the Hughes Medal and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Then during the early 1960s Bullard and his associates used a computer to try and fit all of the continents together. Instead of using the shorelines, like other geophysicists had done, he used a depth of 2000 meters (6560 ft) below sea level. This depth corresponds to about half way between the shoreline and the ocean basins and represents the true edge of the continents. By doing this he discovered a near perfect fit among the continents put together. With this discovery he helped further the idea that earlier geophysicist, Alfred Wegener, had suggested called Pangaea.

After retiring from Cambridge he settled to a position in California where he died in 1980. His papers are held by the Churchill Archives Centre.

External links

• University of California San Diego obit
• Bullard photo
• Cambridge article

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