Recollection of Neil W. Ashcroft by Dieter Hochheimer

With great sadness, I have received the e-mail that Neil Ashcroft has died. I will miss a great friend, scientist, and human being I was blessed to know and interact with for many years. Not only I will miss him, but also the science community and the many people who knew him personally.

Whenever, I got an e-mail from him, he always ended with “Press on, Dieter”. Though you are not here anymore your legacy will live on. So, rest in peace, my friend.

Here are some of my favorite pictures with Neil. Unfortunately, I cannot find anymore his picture I took at the Vereshchagin Institute of High Pressure in Russia, where he stood at the huge press, Vereshchagin built to achieve metallic hydrogen at high pressure, because Neil had such an influence in the search for metallic hydrogen.

Neil and his wife Judith at the NATO workshop at Pingree Park, Colorado in 2001.

Neil at the NATO workshop at Pingree Park, Colorado in 1991.

This picture was a Soccer horoscope Neil presented at the Gordon Conference Research at High Pressure in Meriden, New Hampshire. We played for many years the female soccer team of Kimball Union where the conferences took place. The bet was that we had to serve the girls breakfast, if we should lose. The problem was that we got older and the girls better. So, Neil predicted when we would lose.