Samuel Tolansky

Samuel Tolansky, born Turlausky,[2] FRAS FRSA FInstP FRS[1][3][4] (17 November 1906 – 4 March 1973),[5] was a British physicist.

In 1928 he was awarded a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree with first class honours from Durham University.

He then attended the Physikalisch-Technische Reichanstalt in Berlin under Prof. F. Paschen and several spectroscopists where he learnt how to make high-reflectivity films by evaporation.

There, from 1932 to 1934 he researched interferometry under Prof. A. Fowler and began writing "Hyperfine Structure in Line Spectra and Nuclear Spin".

In 1969 he appeared on the BBC astronomy programme The Sky at Night explaining the dimensions of space, and introduced the concept of 2-dimensional 'Flatlanders'.