David Thouless

{{Infobox scientist

| honorific_prefix = Professor

| name = David Thouless

| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|FRS|size=100}}

| image = DavidThouless 1995 UW.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = David Thouless in 1995

| birth_name = David James Thouless

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1934|9|21|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Bearsden, Scotland

| death_date = {{death date and age|2019|4|6|1934|9|21|df=y}}

| death_place = Cambridge, England

| citizenship = United Kingdom

| nationality = British

| field = Condensed matter physics

| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

| work_institution = {{Plainlist|

| thesis_title = The application of perturbation methods to the theory of nuclear matter

| thesis_year = 1958

| thesis_url = http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/745509629

| doctoral_advisor = Hans Bethe{{MathGenealogy|id=208083}}

| doctoral_students =

| notable_students = J. Michael Kosterlitz (postdoc){{cite web|author=Anon|year=2016|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07x12m3|title=BBC Radio 4 profile: Professor David J Thouless|publisher=BBC|location=London}}

| known_for = {{Plainlist|

| prizes = {{Plainlist|

Maxwell Medal and Prize (1973)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1979)
Holweck Prize (1980)
Fritz London Memorial Prize (1984)
Wolf Prize (1990)
Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1995)
Lars Onsager Prize (2000)
Nobel Prize in Physics (2016){{cite web | last1=Devlin | first1=Hannah | last2=Sample | first2=Ian | title=British trio win Nobel prize in physics 2016 for work on exotic states of matter – live | website=The Guardian | date=4 October 2016 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/live/2016/oct/04/nobel-prize-in-physics-2016-to-be-announced-live | access-date=4 October 2016}}}}

| footnotes =

| children = 3

| spouse = {{marriage|Margaret Elizabeth Scrase|1958}}

}}

David James Thouless ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|θ|aʊ|l|ɛ|s}}; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019) was a British condensed-matter physicist.{{cite web |url=http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/newsbulletin/2004/04/23/text04.shtml |title=Physicist Thouless to give two talks at Lab |access-date=4 October 2016 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061015000324/http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/newsbulletin/2004/04/23/text04.shtml |archive-date=15 October 2006 }}, Los Alamos National Laboratory He was awarded the 1990 Wolf Prize and a laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4PN4GnsrSgC&q=%22Thouless,+david+james%22+1934|title=The international who's who 1991–92|date=25 July 1991|publisher=Europa Publ.|via=Google Books|isbn=9780946653706}}

Education

Born on 21 September 1934 in Bearsden, Scotland {{cite news|last1=Sturrock|first1=Laura|title=Bearsden scientist is awarded Nobel prize in Physics|url=http://www.kirkintilloch-herald.co.uk/news/bearsden-scientist-is-awarded-nobel-prize-in-physics-1-4249500|access-date=6 October 2016|work=Kirkintilloch Herald|date=5 October 2016}} to English parents, Priscilla (Gorton) Thouless, an English teacher, and Robert Thouless a psychologist and broadcaster.[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/obituaries/david-thouless-dead.html David Thouless, 84, Dies; Nobel Laureate Cast Light on Matter] New York Times, 2019-04-22. David Thouless was educated at St Faith's School then Winchester College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He obtained his PhD at Cornell University,{{Who's Who | title=Thouless, Prof. David James | id = U37668 | volume = 2016 | edition = online Oxford University Press|location=Oxford}}{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=David James|last=Thouless |title=The application of perturbation methods to the theory of nuclear matter |publisher=Cornell University |year=1958 |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010004677 |oclc=745509629}} where Hans Bethe was his doctoral advisor.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ikrt42W9IOgC&pg=PA43|title=From Nuclei to Stars: Festschrift in Honor of Gerald E. Brown|first=Sabine|last=Lee|date=8 April 2011|publisher=World Scientific|via=Google Books|isbn=9789814329880}}

Career and research

Thouless was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, and also worked in the physics department from 1958 to 1959, giving a course on atomic physics.{{cite web|url=http://www.washington.edu/news/2016/10/04/uw-professor-emeritus-david-j-thouless-wins-nobel-prize-in-physics-for-exploring-exotic-states-of-matter/|title=UW Professor Emeritus David J. Thouless wins Nobel Prize in physics for exploring exotic states of matter {{!}} UW Today|website=www.washington.edu|language=en|access-date=7 April 2017}}{{cite web|url=https://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?thoulessd|title=David Thouless|publisher=aip.org|access-date=10 October 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005130847/https://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?thoulessd|archive-date=5 October 2016}} He was the first director of studies in physics at Churchill College, Cambridge, in 1961–1965, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 1965–1978,{{cite web|url=http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2016/10/former-birmingham-scientists-nobel-prize.aspx|title=Two former Birmingham scientists awarded Nobel Prize for Physics|date=4 October 2016|publisher=University of Birmingham|access-date=4 October 2016}} and professor of applied science at Yale University from 1979 to 1980, before becoming a professor of physics at the University of Washington{{Cite journal|last=Nijs|first=Marcel den|date=2019-05-31|title=David Thouless (1934–2019)|journal=Science|language=en|volume=364|issue=6443|pages=835|doi=10.1126/science.aax9125|issn=0036-8075|pmid=31147511|bibcode=2019Sci...364..835D |s2cid=206668153}} in Seattle in 1980. Thouless made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of extended systems of atoms and electrons, and of nucleons.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2016/summary/|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016|website=NobelPrize.org}}{{cite journal|last1=Gibney|first1=Elizabeth|last2=Castelvecchi|first2=Davide|title=Physics of 2D exotic matter wins Nobel: British-born theorists recognized for work on topological phases|journal=Nature|volume=538|issue=7623|year=2016|pages=18|publisher=Springer Nature|location=London|doi=10.1038/nature.2016.20722|pmid=27708331|bibcode=2016Natur.538...18G|doi-access=free}} He also worked on superconductivity phenomena, properties of nuclear matter, and excited collective motions within nuclei.

Thouless made many important contributions to the theory of many-body problems.{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2016/thouless/facts/|title=David J. Thouless Facts|publisher=Nobel Prize.org|access-date=October 13, 2020}} For atomic nuclei, he cleared up the concept of 'rearrangement energy' and derived an expression for the moment of inertia of deformed nuclei. In statistical mechanics, he contributed many ideas to the understanding of ordering, including the concept of 'topological ordering'. Other important results relate to localised electron states in disordered lattices.

=Academic papers=

Selected papers{{Scopus id}} include:

{{cite journal|last1=Kosterlitz|first1=J. M.|author-link1=J. Michael Kosterlitz|last2=Thouless|first2=D. J.|title=Ordering, metastability and phase transitions in two-dimensional systems|journal=Journal of Physics C: Solid State Physics|volume=6|issue=7|year=1973|pages=1181–1203|issn=0022-3719|doi=10.1088/0022-3719/6/7/010|bibcode=1973JPhC....6.1181K|url=http://www.physics.uci.edu/~taborek/publications/other/jcv6i7p1181.pdf}}
{{cite journal|last1=Thouless|first1=D. J.|last2=Kohmoto|first2=M.|last3=Nightingale|first3=M. P.|last4=den Nijs|first4=M.|title=Quantized Hall Conductance in a Two-Dimensional Periodic Potential|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=49|issue=6|year=1982|pages=405–408|issn=0031-9007|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.405|bibcode=1982PhRvL..49..405T|doi-access=free}}

=Books=

{{cite book|last1=Thouless|first1=D. J.|title=Topological Quantum Numbers in Nonrelativistic Physics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4bhgDQAAQBAJ|year=1998|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=981-02-2900-3|location=Singapore|lccn=98009819|oclc=38431218}}
{{cite book|last1=Thouless|first1=D. J.|title=The Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Systems|publisher=Academic Press|location=New York|year=1961|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GaD6AQAAQBAJ|lccn=61012282|oclc=901492152|edition=1st|isbn=9780486493572}}

=Awards and honours=

Thouless was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1979,{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117024634/https://royalsociety.org/people/david-thouless-12410/ |archive-date=17 November 2015 |url=https://royalsociety.org/people/david-thouless-12410/ |publisher=royalsociety.org |location=London |author=Anon |year=1979 |title=Professor David Thouless FRS }} One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where:

{{blockquote|All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." –{{cite web |url=https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ |title=Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies |access-date=2016-03-09 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925220834/https://royalsociety.org/about-us/terms-conditions-policies/ |archive-date=25 September 2015 |df=dmy-all }}}} a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1986), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1995).{{cite web |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/67745.html |title=David Thouless |website=National Academy of Sciences Online |access-date=9 October 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161010125049/http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/67745.html |archive-date=10 October 2016 |url-status=dead }} Among his awards are the Wolf Prize for Physics (1990),[http://www.wolffund.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=winners&cs=337&language=eng David J. Thouless Winner of Wolf Prize in Physics – 1990] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005153221/http://www.wolffund.org.il/index.php?dir=site&page=winners&cs=337&language=eng |date=5 October 2016 }} on the official website of Wolf Foundation the Paul Dirac Medal of the Institute of Physics (1993), the Lars Onsager Prize{{Cite web|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm|title=2018 Stanley Corrsin Award Recipient|website=www.aps.org}} of the American Physical Society (2000), and the Nobel Prize in Physics (2016).

Personal life

Thouless married Margaret Elizabeth Scrase in 1958 and together they had three children. In 2016, Thouless was reported to be suffering from dementia.{{cite news|last1=Knapton|first1=Sarah|title=British scientists win Nobel prize in physics for work so baffling it had to be described using bagels|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/10/04/british-scientists-win-nobel-prize-in-physics-for-work-so-baffli/|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=4 October 2016|access-date=24 September 2017}} He died on 6 April 2019 in Cambridge, aged 84.{{cite web|url=https://www.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/news/professor-david-thouless-1934-2019/|title=Professor David Thouless 1934–2019|date=6 April 2019|publisher=Trinity Hall, Cambridge|access-date=8 April 2019}}