William P. Parker is an American artist, scientist, and entrepreneur, best known for inventing the modern design of the

plasma globe A plasma globe or plasma lamp is a clear glass container filled with a mixture of various noble gases with a high-voltage electrode in the center of the container. When voltage is applied, a plasma is formed within the container. Plasma filam ...

. The invention occurred in 1971, when Parker was working as a student in a physics laboratory at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

and accidentally filled a test chamber to a greater-than-usual pressure with ionized

neon Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

and

argon Argon is a chemical element with the symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third-most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as abu ...

.. Three years later, Parker was artist-in-residence at the

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco, California. Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory natur ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and created two installations using this technology, entitled ''Quiet Lightning'' and ''AM Lightning''. Parker has also exhibited at the

MIT Museum The MIT Museum, founded in 1971, is located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It hosts collections of holography, technology-related artworks, artificial intelligence, architecture, robotics, maritime histor ...

, the

New York Hall of Science The New York Hall of Science, also known as NYSCI, is a science museum located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the New York City borough of Queens, in the section of the park that is in Corona. It occupies one of the few remaining structures fr ...

, and the Housatonic Museum at

Housatonic Community College Housatonic Community College (HCC) is a public community college in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It part of the Connecticut State Colleges & Universities system. HCC grants associate degrees and also has certificate programs. Campus Lafayette Hall ...

Bridgeport, Connecticut Bridgeport is the List of municipalities in Connecticut, most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the List of cities by population in New England, fifth-most populous ...

. He was the youngest

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

at the MIT

Center for Advanced Visual Studies The MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) has its origins in the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an arts and research center founded in 1967 by artist and teacher György Kepes ...

. Plasma globes based on his designs were commercially popular in the 1980s and “are found in nearly every science museum in the world.”Vermont Inventor Offers Leahy Panel Advice On Patent Reform
, U.S. Senator

Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...

, April 25, 2005. In the 1980s, Parker founded Diffraction Ltd,. a defense electro-optics developer that was purchased by the O'Gara Group in 2005. and in 2006 he spun off another company, Creative MicroSystems, focusing on

microfluidics Microfluidics refers to the behavior, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale (typically sub-millimeter) at which surface forces dominate volumetric forces. It is a multidisciplinary field tha ...

. He maintains a studio in

Waitsfield, Vermont Waitsfield is a New England town, town in Washington County, Vermont, Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,844 as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It was created by a Vermont charter on February 25, 1782, ...

, and in 2008 he was elected to the Waitsfield select board.Town of Waitsfield, Vermont – Select Board
. Retrieved December 18, 2008.

Patents

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References

External links

Diffraction Ltd

Creative MicroSystems

Speaker profile from InventVermont
{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Bill Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American inventors American installation artists Neon artists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Place of birth missing (living people)