physics

J. Michael T. Thompson

J. Michael T. Thompson is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand J. Michael T. Thompson rather than just read about it. In short: 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.

Key takeaways

J. Michael T. Thompson belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect J. Michael T. Thompson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of J. Michael T. Thompson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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.

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 was devoted to the buckling of thin spherical shells. 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 and wrote an authoritative book on the underlying general theory. Two more books on the buckling of engineering structures quickly followed 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. His research activity in this period included the discovery of chaos in impacting system, and the establishment of a new design criterion for the integrity of systems against basin erosion by incursive fractals. He was a senior fellow of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (1988–93). He also 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 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. His later research developed the static-dynamic analogy, delineating spatial chaos in twisted rods and buckling cylinders; together with some ideas regarding climate change. A workshop in Thompson's honour was held at UCL in April, 2003. The proceedings, published in the journal Nonlinear Dynamics 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, for which Thompson wrote a paper offering advice to young researchers.

Appointments Fulbright Research Associate, Dept. Aeronautics & Astronautics, Stanford University (1962-3) Lecturer & Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University College London (1964-2002) Visiting Professor, Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles (1976-8) Visiting Mathematician, Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York (1984) Senior Fellow of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council (1988–93) Distinguished 6th Century Chair, Theoretical & Applied Dynamics, University of Aberdeen 2006-16 Honorary Fellow, Dept Applied Maths & Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University (2003–present)

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 Sc.D. (Cambridge), 1977 Council of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, 1989–92 Fellow of the Royal Society, 1985. Elected to the Council, 11 July 2002 OMAE Award, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), 1985 James Alfred Ewing Medal, Institution of Civil Engineers & the Royal Society, 1992 Editor, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (A), 1998-2007 Honorary Doctor of Science (DSc), University of Aberdeen, 2004 Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, for lifetime contributions to mathematics, 2004 Hungarian Academy of Sciences, elected Honorary Member, 2010 Academy of Europe (Academia Europaea), elected to Academy, 2010 Lyapunov Award (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) for work in nonlinear dynamics, 2013

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.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with J. Michael T. Thompson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what J. Michael T. Thompson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to J. Michael T. Thompson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about J. Michael T. Thompson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of J. Michael T. Thompson

In research: J. Michael T. Thompson appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses J. Michael T. Thompson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: J. Michael T. Thompson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1937 births, 20th-century British mechanical engineers, 20th-century mechanical engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for J. Michael T. Thompson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “J. Michael T. Thompson” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study J. Michael T. Thompson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what J. Michael T. Thompson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain J. Michael T. Thompson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is J. Michael T. Thompson in simple terms?

Why does J. Michael T. Thompson matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study J. Michael T. Thompson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on J. Michael T. Thompson.