David James Thouless (; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019) was a British condensed-matter

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. He was the winner of the 1990

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...

and a laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with

F. Duncan M. Haldane Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born 14 September 1951), known as F. Duncan Haldane, is a British-born physicist who is currently the Sherman ...

and

J. Michael Kosterlitz John Michael Kosterlitz (born June 22, 1943) is a British-American physicist. He is a professor of physics at Brown University and the son of biochemist Hans Kosterlitz. He was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics along with David Thouless ...

for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.

Education

Born on 21 September 1934 in

Bearsden Bearsden () is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the northwestern fringe of Greater Glasgow. Approximately from Glasgow city centre, Glasgow City Centre, the town is effectively a suburb, and its housing development coincided with t ...

, Scotland to English parents, Priscilla (Gorton) Thouless, an English teacher, and psychologist and broadcaster, Robert Thouless, David Thouless was educated at

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in

Natural Sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

from the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

as an undergraduate student of

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

. He obtained his PhD at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize ...

was his doctoral advisor.

Career and research

Thouless was a

postdoctoral researcher A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and also worked in the physics department from 1958 to 1959, giving a course on atomic physics. He was the first director of studies in physics at

Churchill College Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was establish ...

, Cambridge, in 1961–1965, professor of mathematical physics at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

in the United Kingdom in 1965–1978, and professor of applied science at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

from 1979 to 1980, before becoming a professor of physics at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in 1980. Thouless made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of extended systems of atoms and electrons, and of nucleons. He also worked on

superconductivity Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

phenomena, properties of nuclear matter, and excited collective motions within nuclei. Thouless made many important contributions to the theory of

many-body problem The many-body problem is a general name for a vast category of physical problems pertaining to the properties of microscopic systems made of many interacting particles. ''Microscopic'' here implies that quantum mechanics has to be used to provid ...

s. For

atomic nuclei The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment. After the discovery of the neutron ...

, he cleared up the concept of 'rearrangement energy' and derived an expression for the

moment of inertia The moment of inertia, otherwise known as the mass moment of inertia, angular mass, second moment of mass, or most accurately, rotational inertia, of a rigid body is a quantity that determines the torque needed for a desired angular acceler ...

of deformed nuclei. In

statistical mechanics In physics, statistical mechanics is a mathematical framework that applies statistical methods and probability theory to large assemblies of microscopic entities. It does not assume or postulate any natural laws, but explains the macroscopic be ...

, he contributed many ideas to the understanding of ordering, including the concept of '

topological ordering In computer science, a topological sort or topological ordering of a directed graph is a linear ordering of its vertices such that for every directed edge ''uv'' from vertex ''u'' to vertex ''v'', ''u'' comes before ''v'' in the ordering. For in ...

'. Other important results relate to localised electron states in disordered

lattice Lattice may refer to: Arts and design * Latticework, an ornamental criss-crossed framework, an arrangement of crossing laths or other thin strips of material * Lattice (music), an organized grid model of pitch ratios * Lattice (pastry), an orna ...

Academic papers

Selected papers include: * *

Books

* *

Awards and honours

Thouless was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1979, One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: a Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

(1986), a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, and a member of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

(1995). Among his awards are the

for Physics (1990),David J. Thouless Winner of Wolf Prize in Physics – 1990
on the official website of Wolf Foundation the Paul Dirac Medal of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, research and application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide membership of over 20,000. The IOP is the Physica ...

(1993), the

Lars Onsager Prize The Lars Onsager Prize is a prize in theoretical statistical physics awarded annually by the American Physical Society. Prize recipients receive a medal, certificate, and $10,000. It was established in 1993 by Drs. Russell and Marian Donnelly in m ...

of the

(2000), and the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

(2016).

Personal life

Thouless married Margaret Elizabeth Scrase in 1958 and together they had three children. In 2016, Thouless was reported to be suffering from

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

. He died on 6 April 2019 in Cambridge, aged 84.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thouless, David James 1934 births 2019 deaths People educated at Winchester College Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge Cornell University alumni Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge Alumni of Clare Hall, Cambridge People from Bearsden Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 21st-century American physicists American nuclear physicists University of Washington faculty Wolf Prize in Physics laureates Fellows of the Royal Society Maxwell Medal and Prize recipients Academics of the University of Birmingham British emigrants to the United States Nobel laureates in Physics American Nobel laureates British Nobel laureates Scottish Nobel laureates Fellows of the American Physical Society