Derek Charles Robinson
Derek Charles Robinson (born May 27, 1941 on the Isle of Man , † December 2, 2002 in Oxford ) was a British physicist who dealt with controlled magnetic nuclear fusion. Since 1996 he has headed the UK's fusion energy program as director of the relevant division at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
Robinson studied at the University of Manchester (where he studied with Brian Flowers ) and was then from 1965 at the British nuclear research facility ( Atomic Energy Research Establishment ) in Harwell . There he studied plasma turbulence in the zeta fusion experiment (a large z-pinch system put into operation in 1957), on which he received his doctorate from Samuel Edwards . This research later contributed to the development of the reversed field pinch .
In 1968 he spent a year at the T3 tokamak of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Lev Andrejewitsch Arzimowitsch had invited British scientists from Culham to confirm the spectacular success of their tokamak at the time, and Robinson was part of the team around Nicol Peacock, who confirmed the Russian successes (Robinson measured the temperature profile of the electrons in the tokamak with a laser) and thus contributed to it that the tokamak concept for nuclear fusion gained international acceptance.
From 1970 he was at the UKAEA's Culham Research Center, where he was the driving force behind a series of fusion experiments: the first British tokamak, the Compass tokamak, and the spherical tokamaks (originally by Martin Peng of Oak Ridge National Laboratory) START (ab Operating in 1991) and its successor MAST. In 1990 he became a British member of the Joint European Torus (JET), which was created in Culham. In 1996 he became a member of its council.
From 1996 until his death he was director of the UKAEA's fusion program and, in this role, was also active in planning for ITER .
He died of cancer.
In 1998 he received the Faraday Medal (IOP) . He was a Fellow of the Royal Society (1994).
He is not to be confused with the Australian mathematical physicist Derek W. Robinson .
literature
- J. Connor, C. Windsor: Biographical Memoirs Fellows Royal Society. 2011, DOI: 10.1098 / rsbm.2011.0012
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Robinson, Derek Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 27, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Isle of Man |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 2, 2002 |
| Place of death | Oxford |