ONE OF the University of Reading’s longest-serving and most influential scientists has died, aged 92.
Emeritus Prof Ian Mills OBE FRS, whose work led to a redefinition of the international standard units of measurement, was a member of Reading’s Department of Chemistry, specialising in infrared spectroscopy to study materials.
His work led to a redefinition of the kilogram, which had previously been based on the weight of a platinum alloy prototype to one based on a mathematically-defined constant.
Prof Robert Van de Noort, vice-chancellor of the University of Reading, said: “I was saddened to hear that Ian Mills had died and I offer my sincere condolences to his family and friends.
“Prof Mills was something of a Reading institution, a local boy who first studied here in the 1940s and whose life and career was almost as long as the University of Reading itself.
“His example shows us that through excellent scholarship, a practical approach to solving problems and a kind and thoughtful manner it is possible to make a significant difference to the world around us.
“He was firmly rooted in Reading, but his achievements continue to bear fruit in every corner of the globe.”
Prof Mills was born in 1930 in Reading, where his father was head of pathology at the Royal Berkshire Hospital. He grew up in Sonning and was educated at Leighton Park School.
He was a keen hitchhiker and, at 16-years-old, he walked across Scotland from east to west accompanied by only his sister.
Entering the University of Reading as an undergraduate, he initially studied physics, but quickly switched to chemistry, a discipline he described as the “most interesting branch” of the physical sciences. He graduated in 1951.
He went on to study a PhD at St John’s, Oxford, and adopt post-doctoral positions at the University of Minnesota in 1954, where he won the Optical Society of America Lomb medal for his work, and at Corpus Christi, Cambridge.
From 1957, Prof Mills spent the rest of his career as a lecturer at Reading.
He was one of the first recipients of a personal professorship at the university in 1966 as a pioneer in using computational methods to calculate line frequencies in interpreting spectra. Notably, he was one of the first people to bring computers to the town.
But it was his later work on the standardisation of metric units that led to his appointment to OBE in 2015.
From a concern about nomenclature and metrology, the study of measurement, he was recruited to be one of the authors of the first editions of the IUPAC Green Book.
He became involved in the Bureau International des Poids de Mesures and was eventually appointed as president of the Comite Consultatif des Unites from 1995 to 2013. This led to the acceptance of the scientific need to redefine the SI system of units.
As a student at Reading, he started a sailing club and forged friendships on the Oxford sailing team, some of whom became his longest-lasting set of friends.
After retiring, Prof Mills continued to sail and walk with friends, celebrating his 80th birthday by climbing the 1,959-foot Haystacks in the Lake District.
He married his wife, Maggy, who he first met at a Scottish country dancing group in Minnesota. They had two children, two grandchildren and one great-grandchild born in August 2022. Maggy predeceased him by just a few weeks.
Prof Mills continued to manage his own household resolutely well into his 90s and died peacefully on December 23 due to heart failure, after a short illness.
