J. Michael T. Thompson

John Michael Tutill Thompson (Michael to his friends), born on 7 June 1937 in Cottingham, England, is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is married with two children.

Professor

John Michael Tutill Thompson
Professor J. Michael T. Thompson
Born (1937-06-07) June 7, 1937
Cottingham, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationHonorary Fellow, Department of Applied Mathematics & Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, Emeritus Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics, Dept of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, University College London
Known forShell buckling and nonlinear dynamics
AwardsJames Alfred Ewing Medal (1992), Lyapunov Award of ASME (2013)
Academic background
Alma materCambridge University
Doctoral advisor(Lord) Henry Chilver

Education and career

Thompson attended the Hull Grammar School, and studied Mechanical Sciences at Cambridge University (Clare College, 1955–61), winning the three top prizes of the Engineering Faculty: the Rex Moir Prize for Part I of the Tripos, the Archibald Denny Prize for Part II, and the John Winbolt Prize for a research essay. His doctoral thesis (PhD, 1962) under the supervision of (Lord) Henry Chilver [1] was devoted to the buckling of thin spherical shells.[2] He spent three more years at Cambridge as a research fellow at Peterhouse.

He joined the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University College London (UCL) in 1964, where he was professor from 1977-2002. Here he built up an internationally recognized group in structural stability, organized an IUTAM (International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics) Symposium [3] and wrote an authoritative book on the underlying general theory.[4] Two more books on the buckling of engineering structures quickly followed [5][6] and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1985.

His research interests were shifting to dynamics and his book Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (1986) sold 14,000 copies and had a major world-wide impact by introducing recent mathematical developments to engineers and applied scientists.[7] His research activity in this period included the discovery of chaos in impacting system,[8] and the establishment of a new design criterion for the integrity of systems against basin erosion by incursive fractals.[9][10]

As a senior fellow of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (1988–93) he was the founder and director of the UCL Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics and its Applications (1991-2002) which was renowned for its application of advanced mathematics to practical problems in (for example) off-shore engineering. The centre hosted an IUTAM Symposium [11] in 1993, and Thompson was for 10 years (1998-2007) a vigorous and innovative editor of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, the world’s longest running scientific journal.[12][13] His later research developed the static-dynamic analogy,[14] delineating spatial chaos in twisted rods and buckling cylinders;[15][16] together with some ideas regarding climate change.[17]

A workshop in Thompson's honour was held at UCL in April, 2003. The proceedings, published in the journal Nonlinear Dynamics [18] included a biographical article by Lord Chilver. Later, for his 75th birthday, a special issue of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. was edited by Isaac Elishakoff,[19] for which Thompson wrote a paper offering advice to young researchers.[20]

Appointments

IUTAM Symposia organised at UCL
  • Collapse: the buckling of structures in theory and practice, 1982
  • Nonlinearity and chaos in engineering dynamics, 1993

Principal honours and awards

Books published
  • A General Theory of Elastic Stability, Wiley, London, 1973
  • Instabilities & Catastrophes in Science and Engineering, Wiley, Chichester, 1982 (Translations: Russian, Japanese)
  • Elastic Instability Phenomena, Wiley, Chichester, 1984
  • Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, geometrical methods for engineers and scientists, Wiley, Chichester, 1986 (Translations: Japanese, Italian). Second Edition, 2002.

Sources

References
  1. J. M. T. Thompson, "Amos Henry Chilver FREng, Baron Chilver of Cranfield", Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 59, 73–91 (2013)
  2. J. M. T. Thompson, The Elastic Instability of Spherical Shells, PhD dissertation, Cambridge University, September 1961
  3. J. M. T. Thompson & G. W. Hunt (eds), Collapse: the buckling of structures in theory & practice, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983. Proc IUTAM Symposium, University College London, August, 1982
  4. J. M. T. Thompson & G. W. Hunt, A general theory of elastic stability, Wiley, London, 1973
  5. J. M. T. Thompson, Instabilities and catastrophes in science and engineering, Wiley, Chichester, 1982. Translated into: Russian, Japanese
  6. J. M. T. Thompson & G. W. Hunt, Elastic instability phenomena, Wiley, Chichester, 1984
  7. J. M. T. Thompson & H. B. Stewart, Nonlinear dynamics and chaos, geometrical methods for engineers and scientists, Wiley, Chichester, 1986. Second Edition, 2002. Translated into: Japanese, Italian
  8. J. M. T. Thompson & R. Ghaffari, Chaos after period-doubling bifurcations in the resonance of an impact oscillator, Physics Letters, 91A, 5-8 (1982)
  9. J. M. T. Thompson, Chaotic phenomena triggering the escape from a potential well, Proc. R. Soc. A 421, 195-225 (1989)
  10. M. S. Soliman & J. M. T. Thompson, Integrity measures quantifying the erosion of smooth and fractal basins of attraction, J. Sound & Vibration, 135, 453-475 (1989)
  11. J. M. T. Thompson & S. R. Bishop (eds), Nonlinearity and chaos in engineering dynamics, Wiley, Chichester, 1994. Proc IUTAM Symposium, University College London, July, 1993
  12. J. M. T. Thompson, Philosophical Transactions into the 21st century: an editorial, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., A 357, 3187-3195 (1999)
  13. J. M. T. Thompson, Ten years of science in Philosophical Transactions A: with the University Research Fellows, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 365, 2779-2797 (2007)
  14. G. W. Hunt, H. M. Bolt, J. M. T. Thompson, Structural localization phenomena and the dynamical phase-space analogy, Proc Roy. Soc. A, 425 (1869): 245-267, 1989
  15. A. R. Champneys & J. M. T. Thompson, A multiplicity of localized buckling modes for twisted rod equations, Proc. R. Soc., A 452, 2467-2491 (1996)
  16. A .R. Champneys, G. W. Hunt & J. M. T. Thompson (eds), Localization and solitary waves in solid mechanics, World Scientific, Singapore, 1999
  17. Brian Launder & J. Michael T. Thompson (eds), Geo-engineering climate change: environmental necessity or Pandora's Box?, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010
  18. Lord Chilver, Michael Thompson: his seminal contributions to nonlinear dynamics – and beyond, Nonlinear Dynamics, 43, 3–16, 2006. Opening paper in two special issues in honour of Michael Thompson
  19. Isaac Elishakoff (ed), A celebration of mechanics: from nano to macro, Theme Issue of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 371, 2013
  20. J. M. T. Thompson, Advice to a young researcher: with reminiscences of a life in science, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 371, 20120425 (2013)
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