Dr Mack Breazeale

passed away on Sept 14 2009 at age 79

Jamie Whitten National Center for Physical Acoustics

University of Mississippi

MACK A BREAZEALE

DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS

OBITUARY

BREAZEALE, DR. MACK A. - 79, retired Distinguished Research Professor and Senior Scientist at the National Center for Physical Acoustics at the University of Mississippi, died Monday, September 14, 2009 at his house in Oxford. Funeral services will be held Monday, September 21 at 2:00 P.M. at Oxford-University United Methodist Church. A graveside service will be held 10:00 Wednesday, September 23 at Shipley Cemetery near Bristol, TN. Visiting hours will be Monday, September 21, 2009 at noon until 2 at Oxford-University United Methodist Church. Born in Leona Mines, Virginia, Dr. Breazeale grew up near Crossville, TN. Educated at Berea College, the Missouri School of Mines, and the Michigan State University, he was a tireless researcher and trained many others in the field of physics. Before his appointment at the National Center for Physical Acoustics, he was professor of physics at the University of Tennessee (1962-1995) and at Michigan State University (1957-1962). A longtime editor of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, he was a fellow of the Acoustical Society and received its Silver Medal in 1989. He was a fellow of the Institute of electrical and Electronics Engineers and Great Britain's Institute of Acoustics, and had been a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stuttgart, Germany early in his career. Dr. Breazeale actively attended Oxford-University United Methodist Church, where he had served in the choir in past years. His first wife, Joanne O'Dell and his stepdaughter Amy Louise Scott predeceased him. Dr. Breazeale's energy and kindness will be missed by this community, as well as by his wider community of professional and personal friends in Tennessee and internationally. He is survived by his wife, Louise Hanna Scott Breazeale of Oxford; one daughter, Jennifer Lee Breazeale Ball and her husband David, of Knoxville, Tennessee; two sons, David Mark Breazeale and his wife Karen, of Corinth, Mississippi; and William Carl Breazeale of Sacramento, CA; two stepsons, Charles M. Scott, Jr. and his wife Rebecca, of Clinton, Mississippi, and Stephen H. Scott and his wife Linda, of Flora, Mississippi; one brother, Clarence W. Breazeale of Morristown, Tennessee; five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. The family has asked that any contributions in Dr. Breazeale's memory be made to Berea College, CPO 2216, Berea, KY 40404 or to Oxford-University United Methodist Church, 424 South 10th Street, Oxford, Mississippi 38655.

BRIEF BIO

Mack A. Breazeale is Distinguished Research Professor of Physics. Dr Breazeale received his Ph. D. from Michigan State University in 1957. He spent one year as Assistant Research Professor at Michigan State, then went to the University of Stuttgart, Germany, as a Fulbright Fellow. Upon his return to the United States, he spent two years as Assistant Research Professor at Michigan State University, then was appointed Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Tennessee, with a Consultantship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was made full Professor of Physics at UT in 1967. Both at The University of Tennessee and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory he interacted with graduate students and now has 31 students for whom he has served as Major Professor. In 1987 he gave the President's lecture and was named Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE UFFC Society and gave a total of 39 lectures in the US, China, Japan, Italy and Denmark. He received the Silver Medal in Physical Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America in 1988. Dr. Breazeale has been at the University of Mississippi National Center for Physical Acoustics since 1988. Dr, Breazeale's specialties were nonlinear acoustics, acoustical parametric interactions, and acoustooptic interactions. He has served as consultant to Oak Ridge, Naval Research Lab., Leeds and Northrup Corp., McDonnell-Douglas Corp., Applications Research Corp.,and Alcon Corp., on subjects related to nonlinear acoustics, optoacoustics, and acoustooptics. His present research involved these subjects applied to condensed matter physics.

A brief laudation on the occasion of Dr Breazeale receiving the UFFC Society's 2008 Achievement Award for his career accomplishments:

13 Nov 08

Hello Mack:

When I learned that you were to be awarded the UFFC Society’s Achievement Award, I thought to myself: yeah! - you deserve it. I am happy for you and I congratulate you!

Wish you could have made it to the Symposium for personal congratulations - but I appreciate that was just ‘not in the cards’. The trip to Beijing is quite an ordeal – I just hope you are doing okay. I understand you are still involved in some research and publishing your work – you’re a better man than myself to be continuing strong like that.

Reminiscing about our past, I believe it was the late 1970’s when we first crossed paths. It was either at an Acoustical Society meeting, or at the University of Tennessee -visiting you and Laszlo Adler when I was considering a career at the Oak Ridge National Labs.

And it has been a pleasure crossing paths with you here and there ever since. Your leading analytical work and accomplishments in the field of non-linear acoustics has always impressed me. It is too bad that it was nearly the end of my technical career before I became involved experimentally with non-linear phenomena, and finally appreciated its ubiquitous nature. Before that, using rather narrow-banded receiving transducers kept the real (non-linear) nature of the propagating wave hidden from me.

The presentation that Jim Miller made at the Plenary Session of the Symposium to honor your Award was particularly gracious, offering an impressive overview of your career. It was good seeing your pictures, reminiscing on the many contributions you have made, and seeing the impact of years mentoring students. That is a nice legacy. And finally, Jan Brown received the Plaque on your behalf.

Well, I wanted to write this note both to say hello and to congratulate. While I do not know if our paths might cross again somewhere, sometime in the future, I am really happy that they have at least crossed in the past. May you continue as a gentleman and a scholar, and may you continue strong.

Sincerely,

Gerry Blessing

MILLER’S PRESENTATION on Mack Breazeale’s career: here

MOST RECENT PAPERS

o Nico F. Declercq, Michael McPherson, Mack Breazeale, and Alem Teklu, "Optical Bragg imaging of acoustic fields after reflection", paper submitted for publication

o Michael McPherson, Alem Teklu, Mack Breazeale, Nico Declercq, and Roger Hasse, "Authors' Response to Strasberg's "Comment on 'Measurement of the frequency dependence of the ultrasonic parametric threshold amplitude for a fluid-filled cavity'", accepted for publication by J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 2009

o Sarah Herbison, Nico Declercq, and Mack Breazeale, “Angular and frequency spectral analysis of the ultrasonic backward beam displacement on a periodically grooved solid”, accepted for publication in J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 2009

o Teklu A, McPherson MS, Breazeale MA,, Hasse RD, Declercq NF., “Measurement of the frequency dependence of the ultrasonic parametric threshold amplitude for a fluid-filled cavity”, JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Volume: 120 Issue: 2 Pages: 657-660 Published: AUG 2006

o Huang DH, Breazeale MA , “An ultrasonic Gaussian transducer and its diffraction field: Theory and practice “, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ULTRASONICS FERROELECTRICS AND FREQUENCY CONTROL Volume: 53 Issue: 5 Pages: 1018-1027 Published: MAY 2006

o Declercq NF, Teklu A, Breazeale MA, et al., “Detection of fiber direction in composites by means of a high-frequency wide-bounded ultrasonic beam and schlieren photography “, RESEARCH IN NONDESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Pages: 55-64 Published: APR-JUN 2005

o Teklu A, Breazeale MA, Declercq NF, et al., “Backward displacement of ultrasonic waves reflected from a periodically corrugated interface “, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS Volume: 97 Issue: 8 Article Number: 084904 Published: APR 15 2005

o Declercq NF, Teklu A, Breazeale MA, et al., “Study of the scattering of leaky Rayleigh waves at the extremity of a fluid-loaded thick plate “, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS Volume: 96 Issue: 10 Pages: 5836-5840 Published: NOV 15 2004

o Breazeale MA, Ostrovskii IV, McPherson MS , “Thermal hysteresis of nonlinear ultrasonic attenuation in lithium niobate “, JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS Volume: 96 Issue: 5 Pages: 2990-2994 Published: SEP 1 2004

o Elmore PA, Breazeale MA , “Dispersion and frequency dependent nonlinearity parameters in a graphite-epoxy composite “, ULTRASONICS Volume: 41 Issue: 9 Pages: 709-718 Published: MAR 2004

o McPherson MS, Ostrovskii I, Breazeale MA , “Observation of acoustical memory in LiNbO3 “, PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS Volume: 89 Issue: 11 Article Number: 115506 Published: SEP 9 2002

o Breazeale MA , “From monochromatic light diffraction to colour Schlieren photography “, JOURNAL OF OPTICS A-PURE AND APPLIED OPTICS Volume: 3 Issue: 4 Pages: S1-S7 Published: JUL 2001

o Huang DH, Breazeale MA , “A Gaussian finite-element method for description of sound diffraction “, JOURNAL OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA Volume: 106 Issue: 4 Pages: 1771-1781 Part: Part 1 Published: OCT 1999

DEGREES

BA	PHYSICS	BEREA COLLEGE-BEREA, KENTUCKY	1953
MS	PHYSICS	UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA, MISSOURI	1954
PHD	PHYSICS	MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY-EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN	1957

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

ACOUSTICS, SOLID STATE PHYSICS, PHYSICS, PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY, LIGHT DIFFRACTION BY ULTRASONIC WAVES IN WATER, PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTORS, SCHLIEREN PHOTOGRAPHY

CONTACT

Mrs Mack A. Breazeale,

1035 Zilla Avent Dr

Oxford, MS 38655-2835USA