physics

Richard J. Buttery

Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery rather than just read about it. In short: Richard John Buttery is a British-American theoretical plasma physicist and the director of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics. He is an elected fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Richard John Buttery is a British-American theoretical plasma physicist and the director of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics. He is an elected fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society.

Early life and career Buttery obtained a B.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics from the University of Manchester in 1990 and 1994 respectively. His dissertation was on the photon fragmentation function in quantum chromodynamics. Following his graduation, Buttery joined the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, where he worked at the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) and the Joint European Torus (JET) for 16 years until 2009. In that year, Buttery relocated to the United States and joined General Atomics as a program planning coordinator for the DIII-D National Fusion Facility. In 2012, Buttery became the Director for Experimental Science and has been leading the DIII-D scientific team ever since.

Scientific contributions Buttery is a member of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics Executive Committee and the U.S. Burning Plasma Organization Council.

Honors and awards Buttery was elected as a fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2009. In 2019, he was elected as a fellow of the American Physical Society for "pioneering contributions to the understanding of magnetohydrodynamics stability in tokamak plasmas, including the physics of tearing modes and magnetic field errors, and for outstanding scientific leadership of national and international fusion research ".

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard J. Buttery

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery

In research: Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery 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: Richard J. Buttery is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Alumni of the University of Manchester, Fellows of the American Physical Society, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard J. Buttery 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.

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How to study Richard J. Buttery in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard J. Buttery in simple terms?

Why does Richard J. Buttery 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 Richard J. Buttery?

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 Richard J. Buttery.