Foreword

Summary

Hugh Padraic Kelly died on June 29, 1992 after a brave and lengthy struggle against cancer.

Hugh was a graduate of Harvard University, receiving an AB degree in 1953. He continued on to UCLA where he was awarded an M.Sc. degree in 1954. He served in the Marine Corps for three years before returning to graduate school at Berkeley. He worked there with Kenneth Watson, receiving his Ph.D. degree in 1963 and proceeding on to a postdoctoral fellowship with Keith Brueckner at the University of California, San Diego, where he began his seminal work on many-body theory. He was appointed to the faculty of the University of Virginia in 1965. He was a distinguished administrator, serving the University as Chairman of the Department of Physics, as Dean of the Faculty and as Provost.

Hugh was a very special person. He was from his first research paper the leader in the application of many-body perturbation theory in atomic and molecular physics using diagrammatic techniques. He was renowned internationally not only for his brilliant researches but also for his extraordinary personal qualities. He was modest, unassuming, always supportive of others. He had an abundance of creative ideas, which he freely shared. Hugh was the least competitive of people. He saw science as a joint enterprise in which he participated with his friends and students.