thumb|[[Solvay Conference on Physics in Brussels 1951. Left to right, sitting: Crussaro, N.P. Allen, Cauchois, Borelius, Bragg, Moller, Sietz, Hollomon, Frank; middle row: Rathenau,<sup>(nl)</sup> Koster, Rudberg,<sup>(sv)</sup>, Flamache, Goche, Groven, Orowan, Burgers, Shockley, Guinier, C.S. Smith, Dehlinger, Laval, Henriot; top row: Gaspart, Lomer, Cottrell, Homes, Curien]]
Egon Orowan FRS () (2 August 1902 – 3 August 1989) was a Hungarian-British physicist and metallurgist. He was key in introducing crystal dislocation into physics and understanding of how materials plastically deform under stress. According to György Marx, he was one of The Martians, a group of Jews born in Pest between 1890 and 1910 who shaped the 20th century's technology after moving to the West.
Early life
Orowan was born in the Óbuda district of Budapest in 1902. After six months of mandatory apprenticeship done home in Hungary, he was admitted to the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (now Technische Universität Berlin), where he studied mechanical and then electrical engineering. roughly contemporarily with G. I. Taylor and Michael Polanyi, realized that the plastic deformation of ductile materials could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocations developed by Vito Volterra in 1905. Though the discovery was neglected until after World War II, it was critical in developing the modern science of solid mechanics.
In Hungary, he seemed to have experienced some difficulty in finding immediate employment and spent the next few years living with his mother and ruminating on his doctoral research. Later, his research interests expanded to include geology.
- Bingham Medal of the Society of Rheology (1959)
- Honorary doctor of engineering degree from Technische Universität Berlin (1965)