Newswise – After 47 years as a pioneering theoretical physicist at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Roscoe White left on 1. A former head of the PPPL theory department and now a retired senior researcher, “I can still do papers submit and publish and use my computer account for research, “said White. “Thats all I need.”
That’s all White has ever needed as a dedicated plasma physicist. “Theoretical fusion research has a lot of very interesting and beautiful math,” he said. “There are a lot of unknown problems and fun things to look for. At the same time, you are contributing to something that can be of enormous importance to society, in other words a win-win situation. “
“A giant of the field”
White’s accomplishments are widely recognized. “From laser-plasma interaction to alpha particles in tokamaks, Roscoe has illuminated our physics with mathematical rigor and sophistication,” said Steve Cowley, director of PPPL. “As a giant, he is just as much at home in classical mathematics of the early 20th century as he is in the latest techniques of the 21st century. I’m happy that he has so much fun researching – we will definitely have fun reading, thank you Roscoe. “
White’s severity illuminates far-reaching areas. “Through a combination of insightful analysis and effective numerical computation, Roscoe has made pioneering contributions throughout his career to a variety of problems in theoretical plasma physics, including those in MHD, energetic particle physics and nonlinear dynamics,” said Amitava Bhattacharjee, who in May after nine years in which the theory department had returned to full-time research and teaching. MHD or magnetohydrodynamics deals with the equilibrium and stability of fusion plasmas.
“Roscoe also found the time to write two beautiful textbooks on fusion theory and asymptotic methods in mathematics, and to oversee several generations of young scientists for whom he has served as an authoritative guide,” said Bhattacharjee. “His energy and productivity remain unbroken, and I personally look forward to intensively engaging him in many issues of mutual interest.”
Plasma, the hot, charged state of matter made up of free electrons and ions that makes up 99 percent of the visible universe, powers fusion reactions that create the energy that powers the sun and stars. Plasma theorists aim to study and predict the unruly behavior of plasma in magnetic facilities such as the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U), the flagship fusion experiment at the PPPL. The results guide experimenters who use such facilities to develop fusion on earth for an almost inexhaustible energy supply to generate safe and clean electricity.
Inspirational enthusiasm
Among the early physicists White mentored is Vinícius Duarte, a PPPL theorist “who has written several papers with White over the past few years. “Roscoe has made pioneering contributions in many different areas,” said Duarte. “He’s very efficient and gets things done quickly. His enthusiasm is inspiring for the newer generations of plasma scientists. “
Nikolai Gorelenkov, senior research physicist at the PPPL, fully agrees. Gorelenkov has worked with White on problems at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR), the PPPL facility that produced world record temperatures and fusion energy in the 1990s and later in the NSTX era. “What surprised me about my work with Roscoe is that he is always open to suggestions and listens to constructive criticism,” said Gorelenkov. “I am glad to have worked with Roscoe and consider him one of the teachers I have had throughout my career.”
White earned his Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Minnesota in 1959 and his PhD in physics from Princeton University in 1963. His doctoral supervisor was Prof. Marvin Goldberger, whose own advisor was Enrico Fermi, who built the world’s first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. White began as a particle physicist and spent time in laboratories in Russia and Italy and lectured at an elementary particle summer school in India before joining the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) as an assistant professor in 1966.
“At UCLA, I tried my hand at plasma physics with Burt Fried’s group,” he said, referring to a leading plasma physicist at that university. His experiments caught the attention of Marshall Rosenbluth, a pioneering plasma physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, who invited him to the institute as a guest member in 1972. “Marshall recalibrated me from a particle physicist to plasma physics,” said White. “I had an induction at UCLA, but Marshall really did it.”
Breakthrough Research
White joined PPPL in 1974 and served as Head of Theory from 1986-1993 and Lecturer at Princeton University since 1984. He co-developed the ORBIT computer code, which is used by plasma scientists around the world. and conducted pioneering research in areas such as the fast ion particles that create fusion reactions.
“I started working as a diagnostician at the PPPL, examining data from rapid ion diagnostics,” recalls the physicist Mario Podesta, an experimenter who joined the laboratory in 2009. “Roscoe’s work quickly put me in the right direction for interpreting the experimental data,” he said. “When Roscoe recently responded to my request for comments on a design by noting how quickly it was created, my response was, ‘It’s easy to stand on the shoulders of giants!’ In fact, all of us who deal with energetic particle physics are now standing on the shoulders of this giant. “
White is the author or co-author of more than 320 publications and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). He served on the executive committee of the APS Division of Plasma Physics and served on the editorial board of Physics of Fluids, chaired the executive committee of a biennial Sherwood International Fusion Theory Conference, and secretary-treasurer of the executive committee of another Sherwood convention.
Black belt in karate
White has several outside interests when not engaged in theoretical plasma physics. He holds a third degree black belt in Shotokan Karate, a Japanese martial art that he learned from a former Japanese master in Trenton. He loves windsurfing, speaks Italian, Russian and German and reads literature in all three languages as well as French.
White and his Italian-born wife Laura, a professor of Italian at Rutgers University, have been married for 55 years. Their daughter Veronica is a teaching and learning curator at Princeton University Art Museum and they have two grandchildren, Eduardo, 7 and Enrico, 11, who is named after Laura White’s father. “I’m fine with Enrico Fermi,” White said.
Looking to the future, he says: “There are many surprises with the fusion.” He quotes a comment by Wilhelm Röntgen, the German physicist and engineer who discovered X-rays. “‘The joy of solving a problem and seeing the results is far greater than anything society can offer,” said Röntgen.
“You have to do something that is really fun and beautiful,” adds White. Addressing key problems in plasma physics, he said, “I’ve spent my entire life doing what’s interesting and great fun.”
PPPL, located on Princeton University’s Forrestal campus in Plainsboro, NJ, is dedicated to creating new insights into the physics of plasmas – ultra-hot, charged gases – and developing practical solutions for generating fusion energy. The laboratory is administered by the University for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the United States’ single largest contributor to basic research in the physical sciences and works to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. More information is available at energy.gov/science.
Comments are closed.