John Lawson (physicist)

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John D. Lawson (born April 4, 1923 in Coventry , † January 15, 2008 ) was a British physicist and engineer.

Lawson was particularly interested in classical languages ​​as a student and initially studied at the University of Cambridge as an engineer; He was denied a degree in physics due to a lack of knowledge of chemistry. After graduating in 1943, he worked on radar antennas at the Telecommunications Research Establishment in Malvern . From 1947 he worked on particle accelerators at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell , for which his experience in antenna construction was useful. Among other things, he worked on the first test synchrotrons in Great Britain and on cyclotrons. He also dealt with the development of klystrons and with nuclear fusion research , which was still secret at the time. In this context, his most famous work, the Lawson Criterion , was written in 1955 . 1959 to 1960 he was at the WW Hansen Laboratories in Stanford . From 1961 he was at the National Institute of Research in Nuclear Science at Harwell, which soon after became the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory . Here he continued to work with particle accelerators (for example he was involved in building the 7 GeV proton synchrotron Nimrod in Harwell, which was in operation from 1964 to 1978) and built up the program of developing superconducting magnets for accelerators, where in the 1960s Martin N. Wilson achieved a breakthrough. In 1975/76 he devoted himself to fusion research in a sabbatical year at the Culham laboratory. After that he dealt again with research on future particle accelerators (free electron lasers, acceleration with plasmas). In 1987 he retired.

He had been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1983 . In 1970 he became a Fellow of the Institute of Physics . In 1959 he received a Doctor of Science from Cambridge University.

literature

  • Andrew Sessler, Edmund Wilson Engines of discovery , World Scientific 2007, p. 162 (biography)
  • Lawson The physics of charged particle beams , Oxford, Clarendon Press 1977, 2nd edition 1989

Individual evidence

  1. ^ JD Lawson: Some Criteria for a Power Producing Thermonuclear Reactor. In: Proceedings of the Physical Society. Section B. 70, 1957, pp. 6-10, doi : 10.1088 / 0370-1301 / 70/1/303 . Extended version of the AERE report GP / R 1807, December 1955, declassified April 9th ​​1957
personal data
SURNAME Lawson, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lawson, John D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British physicist and engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Coventry
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 2008