Peter Clive Thonemann (3 June 1917 – 10 February 2018) was an Australian-born British physicist who was a pioneer in the field of

fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion, nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, whi ...

while working in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. Thonemann was born in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and moved to

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1944, becoming one of the earliest researchers on the topic of controlled fusion. He led the fusion research at Oxford in its early years, before moving to the

Atomic Energy Research Establishment The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was the main Headquarters, centre for nuclear power, atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Governm ...

(Harwell) in 1950. He led the

ZETA Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived f ...

reactor development at Harwell and announced its apparent success in 1958. Thonemann was deputy director of the new

Culham Laboratory The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is the UK's national laboratory for fusion research. It is located at the Culham Science Centre, near Culham, Oxfordshire, and is the site of the Joint European Torus (JET), Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak ...

in 1965-66. In 1968 he left Culham to become Professor of Physics at today's

Swansea University , former_names=University College of Swansea, University of Wales Swansea , motto= cy, Gweddw crefft heb ei dawn , mottoeng="Technical skill is bereft without culture" , established=1920 – University College of Swansea 1996 – University of Wa ...

, where he worked on applying his physics knowledge to

biological Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary in ...

research. He retired from Swansea in 1984, living out his life in the city.

Early life and education

Julius Emil Thonemann moved to Australia from Germany in 1854 and was consul to Victoria for the

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

from 1866 to 1879. His son, Frederick Emil Thonemann, was born in 1860 in Melbourne. Frederick established a wool trading business, Thonemann and Lange, which later became a stock brokerage, F. Thonemann and Sons, among other businesses. Peter was the second of four children, born to Frederick's second wife, Mabel Jessie Fyfe. Peter grew up in the family's large house, "Rathgawn", and attended

Melbourne Grammar School (Pray and Work) , established = 1849 (on present site since 1858 - the celebrated date of foundation) , type = Independent, co-educational primary, single-sex boys secondary, day and boarding , denominatio ...

. In 1936 he began a physics degree at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, completing his bachelor's degree in 1939. When the war started that year, he was sent to work at the Munitions Supply Laboratories in Melbourne, where he worked until 1942 when he moved to Amalgamated Wireless in Sydney. There, he met his future wife, Jean, with whom he had two children, Helena, in 1946, and Philip, in 1949. In 1944 he began his master's degree at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

, where he wrote his thesis on the study of high frequency fields in an ionized gas. Australian universities were not offering PhDs at that time, so he took a position at

later that year.

Fusion work

Immediately after the war, Jim Tuck returned to Oxford from his time on the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. He met Thonemann, whose experience in electric discharges in gas made him familiar with the

pinch effect A pinch (or: Bennett pinch (after Willard Harrison Bennett), electromagnetic pinch, magnetic pinch, pinch effect, or plasma pinch.) is the compression of an electrically conducting Electrical filament, filament by magnetic forces, or a device tha ...

, a possible route to controlled fusion. The two wrote a proposal to build a small machine, but before it was approved, Tuck returned to the US. In 1947, Cousins and Ware began experiments using pinch in toroidal tubes. Thonemann was able to arrange a small amount of funding, and in 1948 began basic experiments with electrical discharges in a linear tube containing mercury gas to study the pinch effect. By the next year he had moved to a larger copper torus and was able to demonstrate the pinch to

Frederick Lindemann Frederick Alexander Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, ( ; 5 April 18863 July 1957) was a British physicist who was prime scientific adviser to Winston Churchill in World War II. Lindemann was a brilliant intellectual, who cut through bureauc ...

and

John Cockcroft Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, (27 May 1897 – 18 September 1967) was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclea ...

. Thonemann became the

(AERE) Head of Research on Controlled Thermonuclear Reactions in 1949, a position he held until 1960. As a result of the exposing of

Klaus Fuchs Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly aft ...

as a Soviet spy, by 1952 the fusion research at Oxford was moved to Harwell, while Cousins and Ware's work moved to the

Atomic Weapons Establishment The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research ...

at Aldermaston. At Harwell, Cockcroft had successfully argued for the construction of a much larger machine,

. By 1957, early indications were that ZETA had successfully produced tiny amounts of fusion, and the story began to leak to the press. This led to considerable coverage about Thonemann's role in the Australian press. In January it was announced that ZETA had succeeded. After further work, it became clear that the signals of fusion were false, and the story had to be withdrawn, causing great embarrassment. After some arguments within the UK scientific establishment, the decision was made to move the fusion-related work to a new location at Culham. Thonemann moved to Culham and became the deputy director during 1965-66.

Biological studies

In 1968, Thonemann moved to University College of Swansea, now Swansea University, to become a Professor of Physics. He was not able to raise funds to begin a fusion program at Swansea, and instead began applying the mathematics of the dynamics of particles in plasma to the movement of E. coli in response to the gradients of nutrients. Thonemann retired from Swansea in 1984 but continued to live in the town until his death on 10 February 2018, aged 100. He had two children, a son and daughter, with his wife Jean.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Thonemann, Peter 1917 births 2018 deaths Australian centenarians British centenarians Men centenarians Nuclear physicists Plasma physicists People from Melbourne Australian people of German descent