Peter Thonemann
Australian-born British physicist
Peter Clive Thonemann (3 June 1917 – 10 February 2018) was an Australian-born British physicist who was a pioneer in the field of fusion power while working in the United Kingdom.
Thonemann was born in Melbourne and moved to Oxford University in 1944, becoming one of the earliest researchers on the topic of controlled fusion. He led the fusion research at Oxford in its early years, before moving to the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (Harwell) in 1950. He led the ZETA reactor development at Harwell and announced its apparent success in 1958.
Thonemann was deputy director of the new Culham Laboratory in 1965–66. In 1968 he left Culham to become Professor of Physics at today's Swansea University, where he worked on applying his physics knowledge to biological research. He retired from Swansea in 1984, living out his life in the city.
Early life and education
Julius Emil Thonemann moved to Australia from Germany in 1854 and was consul to Victoria for the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1866 to 1879. His son, Frederick Emil Thonemann, was born in 1860 in Melbourne. Frederick established a wool trading business, Thonemann and Lange, which later became a stock brokerage, F. Thonemann and Sons, among other businesses.
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