John Bryan Taylor (born 26 December 1928) is a British

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 ca ...

known for his contributions to

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

and their application in the field of

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

. Notable among these is the development of the "

Taylor state In plasma physics, a Taylor state is the minimum energy state of a plasma while the plasma is conserving magnetic flux. This was first proposed by John Bryan Taylor in 1974 and he backed up this claim using data from the ZETA machine. Taylor-St ...

", describing a minimum-energy configuration that conserves

magnetic helicity In plasma physics, magnetic helicity is a measure of the linkage, twist, and writhe of a magnetic field. In ideal magnetohydrodynamics, magnetic helicity is conserved. When a magnetic field contains magnetic helicity, it tends to form large-scal ...

. Another development was his work on the

ballooning transformation Ballooning may refer to: * Hot air ballooning * Balloon (aeronautics) * Ballooning (spider) * Ballooning degeneration, a disease * Memory ballooning See also

* Balloon (disambiguation) {{Disambiguation Ballooning, ...

, which describes the motion of plasma in

toroid In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its ...

al (donut) configurations, which are used in the fusion field. Taylor has also made contributions to the theory of the Earth's Dynamo, including the Taylor constraint.

Early life and career

Taylor was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. He served in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

from 1950–1952, and then took his PhD at

Birmingham University The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingha ...

in 1955. Upon graduation, he joined 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 E ...

Aldermaston Aldermaston is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstok ...

, and in 1962 moved to the Culham Laboratory, where he became Chief Physicist. He held several other positions during this period, including the Commonwealth Fund Fellow at the

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 ...

in 1959 to 1960, the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

in 1969, 1973 and 1980–81, and finally took the position of Fondren Professor of Plasma Theory at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1989. Taylor is still actively involved in fusion science, working with Culham laboratory and

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 ...

. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

in 1970.

Honors and awards

Taylor won 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 ...

's James Clerk Maxwell Medal and Prize in 1971, and the

Max Born Medal and Prize The Max Born Medal and Prize is a scientific prize awarded yearly by the German Physical Society (DPG) and the British Institute of Physics (IOP) in memory of the German physicist Max Born, who was a German-Jewish physicist, instrumental in the ...

in 1979. He then went on to win the American Physical Society's

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, ...

in 1999. Taylor initiated the study of chaos in magnetic surfaces, developing several contributions to

chaos theory Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have ...

and introducing the " standard map" (or Chirikov–Taylor map). He studied 2D-plasmas, demonstrating the inherent

Bohm diffusion The diffusion of plasma across a magnetic field was conjectured to follow the Bohm diffusion scaling as indicated from the early plasma experiments of very lossy machines. This predicted that the rate of diffusion was linear with temperature and in ...

which had been noticed in magnetic bottles since the 1950s. He then played a major part in developing the "

ballooning transformation Ballooning may refer to: * Hot air ballooning * Balloon (aeronautics) * Ballooning (spider) * Ballooning degeneration, a disease * Memory ballooning See also

* Balloon (disambiguation) {{Disambiguation Ballooning, ...

" for toroidal plasmas, along with Jack Connor and Jim Hastie, which won him the 2004

Hannes Alfvén Prize The Hannes Alfvén Prize is a prize established by the European Physical Society (EPS) Plasma Physics Division in 2000. The Prize is awarded annually by the European Physical Society at the EPS Conference on Plasma Physics for outstanding work in t ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, John Bryan 1928 births Living people British nuclear physicists Fellows of the Royal Society Maxwell Medal and Prize recipients Alumni of the University of Birmingham University of California, Berkeley people University of Texas at Austin faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society