David J. Thouless

British physicist (1934–2019)

David James Thouless FRS (/ˈθlɛs/; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019) was a British physicist.[6] He is a winner of the Wolf Prize and the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.[7][8][9]

David Thouless

David Thouless in 2016
Born
David James Thouless

(1934-09-21)21 September 1934
Bearsden, Scotland[1]
Died6 April 2019(2019-04-06) (aged 84)
Cambridge, England[2]
NationalityBritish
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse
Margaret Elizabeth Scrase
(m. 1958)
Children3[3]
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsCondensed matter physics
Institutions
ThesisThe application of perturbation methods to the theory of nuclear matter (1958)
Doctoral advisorHans Bethe[5]
Notable studentsJ. Michael Kosterlitz (postdoc)[3]

In 2016, Thouless was reported to be suffering from dementia.[10] He died on 6 April 2019 in Cambridge, at the age of 84.[2]

References

change
  1. Sturrock, Laura (5 October 2016). "Bearsden scientist is awarded Nobel prize in Physics". Kirkintilloch Herald. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Professor David Thouless 1934-2019". Trinity Hall, Cambridge. 6 April 2019. Retrieved 8 April 2019.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Anon (2016). "BBC Radio 4 profile: Professor David J Thouless". London: BBC.
  4. Devlin, Hannah; Sample, Ian (4 October 2016). "British trio win Nobel prize in physics 2016 for work on exotic states of matter – live". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  5. David J. Thouless at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. "Physicist Thouless to give two talks at Lab". Archived from the original on 15 October 2006. Retrieved 4 October 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link), Los Alamos National Laboratory
  7. The international who's who 1991-92. Europa Publ. 1991. ISBN 978-0-946653-70-6.
  8. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016
  9. Gibney, Elizabeth; Castelvecchi, Davide (2016). "Physics of 2D exotic matter wins Nobel: British-born theorists recognized for work on topological phases". Nature. 538 (7623). London: Springer Nature: 18. Bibcode:2016Natur.538...18G. doi:10.1038/nature.2016.20722. PMID 27708331. S2CID 4451184.
  10. Knapton, Sarah (4 October 2016). "British scientists win Nobel prize in physics for work so baffling it had to be described using bagels". The Telegraph. The Telegraph. Retrieved 24 September 2017.