Lawrence Mark Lidsky (1935–2002) was a professor of
nuclear engineering 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 ...
(MIT).
Lidsky was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
,
New York, on October 15, 1935.
He did his undergraduate studies 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 tea ...
, graduating in 1958,
and earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering from MIT in 1962 with a thesis entitled "Plasma Generation and Acceleration",
after which he joined the MIT faculty.
Lidsky was the advisor to more than 80 graduate students and the founding editor of the ''Journal of Fusion Energy''.
In 1983, as assistant director for the MIT Plasma Fusion Center, Lidsky wrote an influential article about the difficulties of making a working
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 ...
power plant.
The ensuing reduction in federal funding for fusion research led him to resign from the center,
and caused him to be "drummed out" of the nuclear fusion research community.
Because of his concerns with the viability of fusion power, he instead became by 1989 an advocate for safer
nuclear fission reactor designs.
In 1999 he was named a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science "for outstanding contributions to both nuclear fission and fusion in education, research, system design and analysis, technical publications and federal policy".
[.]
He died March 1, 2002 in
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
, after struggling with cancer for many years.
[.][.]
Selected publications
*Lidsky, L. M. (1983). ''The Trouble With Fusion.'' Technology Review, 86(7), 32–44
References
External links
Lidsky, Lawrence Mark MIT Museum Collections - People
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lidsky, Lawrence
1935 births
2002 deaths
20th-century American physicists
Cornell University alumni
MIT School of Engineering alumni
MIT School of Engineering faculty
American nuclear engineers
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
20th-century American engineers