Harold Paul Furth (January 13, 1930 – February 21, 2002) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n-American

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 cau ...

who was a pioneer in leading the American efforts to harness thermonuclear fusion for the generation of electricity. He died of a heart ailment on 21 February 2002.

Early life

Furth emigrated to the United States in 1941. His father fled a POW camp during WWI, but returned to Vienna a few years later. In his later years, he ran a shoe-making business with his family. He also developed an interest for literature. In the summer of 1939, Harold's father had escaped to Switzerland. After studying at the French-speaking École Internationale in Geneva, Harold immigrated to New York City in 1941. He later graduated at the head of his class at

The Hill School The Hill School (commonly known as The Hill) is a coeducational preparatory boarding school located on a campus in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about northwest of Philadelphia. The Hill is part of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO). ...

. He graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

with a bachelor's degree in 1951 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1960. His PhD thesis is entitled ''Magnetic Analysis of K^– Interactions in Emulsion Nuclei''.

Career

Furth worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1956 to 1967 before going in 1967 to

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known ...

(PPPL) where he would spend the rest of his career working in

plasma physics Plasma ()πλάσμα
, Henry George Liddell, R ...

and

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manife ...

. He was also a professor of astrophysics at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

.Furth, Harold (1995) ''Fusion'',

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

273(3), 174-176. In the late 1960s, Furth contributed some important theoretical work on resistive

magnetohydrodynamics Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also called magneto-fluid dynamics or hydromagnetics) is the study of the magnetic properties and behaviour of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such magnetofluids include plasmas, liquid metals, ...

instabilities in a slightly resistive plasma. In 1981 Furth became the director at PPPL and led the laboratory until 1990 during record setting magnetic fusion energy experiments on the largest

tokamak A tokamak (; russian: токамáк; otk, 𐱃𐰸𐰢𐰴, Toḳamaḳ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being ...

in the country, the

Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) was an experimental tokamak built at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) circa 1980 and entering service in 1982. TFTR was designed with the explicit goal of reaching scientific breakeven, the point w ...

(TFTR).

Awards

In 1983, Furth was awarded the

James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics The James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics is an annual American Physical Society (APS) award that is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of the Plasma Physics. It was established in 1975 by Maxwell Technologies, ...

by the American Physical Society. In 1992, he was awarded the Delmer S. Fahrney Medal (now known as the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics) by the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memori ...

. Furth was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

References

External links

MyHeritage pagehttps://physicstoday.scitation.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Furth, Harold 1930 births 2002 deaths Harvard University alumni The Hill School alumni Princeton University faculty 20th-century American physicists Austrian physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Plasma physicists Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory people Burials at Princeton Cemetery