Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- William Thompson Papers
- Dates:
- circa 1930-1995 (bulk 1965-1990)
- Creators:
- Thompson, W. B. (William Bell), 1922-1995
- Abstract:
- Papers of William Bell Thompson, physicist, researcher, professor, editor, and administrator. Thompson did pioneering work in plasma physics and established the field at Oxford University and the University of California, San Diego. He did theoretical and applied work in controlled thermonuclear research and brought several of his other interests together with research on tethers in space. The papers document Thompson's career at UCSD and include correspondence, journal articles, reports, notes, lectures, grant proposals, teaching material, and subject files.
- Extent:
- 9.6 Linear feet (23 archives boxes and 2 oversize file folders)
- Language:
- English
- Preferred citation:
-
William Thompson Papers, MSS 410. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Papers of William Bell Thompson, physicist, researcher, professor, editor, and administrator. Thompson did pioneering work in plasma physics and established the field at Oxford University and the University of California, San Diego. He did theoretical and applied work in controlled thermonuclear research and brought several of his other interests together with research on tethers in space. The papers document Thompson's career at UCSD and include correspondence, journal articles, reports, notes, lectures, grant proposals, teaching material, and subject files. The collection provides a representative selection of his work in physics as researcher, teacher, editor, and administrator, principally during his twenty-five years (1965-1990) with the UCSD Physics Department.
Arranged in eight series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS, 4) LECTURES AND TALKS, 5) CONTRACTS, GRANTS AND PROPOSALS, 6) TEACHING MATERIAL, 7) SUBJECT FILES, and 8) FRAGMENTS AND UNIDENTIFIED MATERIAL.
- Biographical / historical:
-
William Bell Thompson was born February 27, 1922, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was trained at Canadian universities, receiving his B.A. in physics and mathematics in 1944 and his M.A. in physics in 1947 from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. In 1950 he received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Toronto, Ontario, and went to England to take up an appointment as Senior Fellow in the Theoretical Physics Division at Harwell, the laboratory of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. When a separate facility, Culham Laboratory, was set up for fusion studies, Thompson moved there and remained until his election to the Chair of Theoretical Plasma Physics at Oxford University in 1963.
Thompson first came to the University of California, San Diego, in 1961 as a visiting professor from Culham. In 1965 he was invited to join the new San Diego campus as a founding member of the Physics Department. He spent the next twenty-five years at UCSD, combining research, supervision of doctoral research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities; he was chairman of the department from 1969 to 1972. He retired in 1990.
Thompson's career focused on the development of the theory of plasma physics and its applications in controlled thermonuclear research. He worked in the areas of magnetic fusion, magnetohydrodynamics, the calculation of transport coefficients, heating, instabilities, diffusion, relativistic kinetic theory, counterstreaming plasmas, resonances, toroidal systems and guiding center plasmas in two dimensions. He was also interested in other fields: terrestrial magnetism, planetary dynamics, antimatter, space science, and oceanography. He combined many of these areas in research projects on tethers.
Thompson extended his commitment to teaching beyond his physics laboratories and classrooms. He gave talks and lectures to a range of audiences, participated in interdisciplinary seminars for undergraduates and wrote review articles for his colleagues in other areas of physics.
William B. Thompson died in 1995.
- Acquisition information:
- Acquired 1996.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2026-05-08 20:20:13 +0000 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. ALLOW TWO TO THREE (2-3) WEEKS FOR RETRIEVAL OF MATERIALS.
- Terms of access:
-
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
- Preferred citation:
-
William Thompson Papers, MSS 410. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
- Location of this collection:
-
9500 Gilman Drive, Dept. 0175La Jolla, CA 92093-0175, US
- Contact:
- (858) 534-2533