John D. Lawson (scientist)

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

Lawson was interested in as a student, especially for classical languages ​​and studied at the University of Cambridge as an engineer; studying physics was denied due to lack of knowledge of chemistry. After the bachelor's degree in 1943, he worked on radar antennas at the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern. From 1947 he worked at particle accelerators at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, for which his experience in Antenna were useful. Among other things, he worked on the first trial synchrotrons in the UK and at cyclotrons. In addition, he also dealt with the development of klystrons and nuclear fusion research, which was still a secret. In this context, 1955 was his most famous work, the Lawson criterion. 1959 to 1960 he was at the WW Hansen Laboratories at Stanford. From 1961 he was in the National Institute of Research in Nuclear Science at Harwell, which it became the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory soon. Here he dealt further with particle accelerators ( for example, he was involved in the construction of the 7 GeV proton synchrotron Nimrod at Harwell, which was from 1964 to 1978 in operation) and built the program of the development of superconducting magnets on for accelerators, where in the 1960s Martin N. Wilson a breakthrough. 1975/76 he devoted himself in a sabbatical year at the Culham Laboratory again in fusion research. He then dealt again with research on future particle accelerators ( Free Electron Laser, acceleration with plasmas ). In 1987, he went into retirement.

He was 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 degree from the University of Cambridge.