Derek Robinson (physicist)
Derek Charles Robinson ( born May 27, 1941 the Isle of Man; † 2 December 2002, Oxford ) was a British physicist who dealt with controlled magnetic fusion. Since 1996 he headed the fusion energy program Britain as Director of the appropriate division in 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 ( Atomic Energy Research Establishment) in Harwell. He studied plasma turbulence at the zeta fusion experiment ( one from 1957 was put into operation large z -pinch system), which he received his doctorate at Samuel Edwards. This research contributed to the development of later reversed field pinch.
In 1968 he spent a year at the T3 tokamak of the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Lev Andreevich Arzimowitsch had British scientists from Culham invited to confirm the then spectacular successes of their tokamaks and Robinson was part of the team to Nicol Peacock, which confirmed the Russian successes ( Robinson measured with a laser, the temperature profile of the electrons in tokamak ) and so helped that the tokamak approach to fusion prevailed internationally.
From 1970 he was at Culham Research Center of the UKAEA, where he was the driving force behind a series of fusion experiments: the first British tokamak, the Compass tokamak, and the Spherical Tokamak (originally by Martin Peng from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) START ( from Operating as in 1991 ) and its successor, MAST. In 1990 he became a British member of the Joint European Torus (JET ), which originated in Culham. He became a member of its Council in 1996.
From 1996 until his death he was a director for the Fusion Programme of the UKAEA and in that capacity also actively involved in the 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.