David Tabor (physicist)

David Tabrisky was the sixth of seven children of Russian Jewish parents Charles (born "Ezekiel") Tabrisky and Rebecca (née Weinstein), who had emigrated to the United Kingdom and lived at Notting Hill Gate. His father had been a non-commissioned officer in, and armourer to, the Russian Imperial Army, and had run a business as a gunsmith and metalworker. On coming to England, he established a small metalworking business specialising in customised fittings and designs. Charles Tabrisky changed the family's surname to "Tabor" in the early 1920s. Tabor was educated at the Portobello Road Primary School, Regent Street Polytechnic Secondary School, and Imperial College London (to which he won a scholarship), then went to Cambridge to undertake research in the Department of Chemistry.^[3][4][5]

In 1957, Tabor was elected a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1964, the University of Cambridge appointed him Reader in Physics. From 1969 to 1981, he served as Head of Physics and Chemistry of Solids at the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1973, he was promoted to Professor of Physics. He was made Professor Emeritus when he retired in 1981.^[6] Much of Tabor's tribology research was performed alongside Frank Philip Bowden,^{[7][8][9][10][11]} with whom he published his popular book 'The Friction and Lubrication of Solids'.^[12]