John Adams and the development of nuclear fusion research

John Adams became interested in fusion research in 1958 at the time of the first substantial publication of theoretical and experimental investigations on the possibility of reaching the required high temperatures by using magnetic fields to confine the hot ionized gas. The present author summarises the main scientific outcome of work at Culham under John Adams: (i) an impressive agreement between theory and experiments in open-ended systems in the matter of gross MHD stability; (ii) in at least one experiment-the 8 metre theta pinch-with a dense high-temperature high-beta plasma, the loss of particles across the lines of force could be classical i.e. due to collisions and radiation only, and not due to instabilities; (iii) the starting of work on closed line magnetic traps, of which perhaps the most interesting was the work on stellarators, where the basic particle confinement in the configuration was established; and (iv) the beginnings of the further development of toroidal pinch concepts mostly based on results from the Zeta apparatus; but also the above mentioned theoretical work on the stability of the Tokamaks and the experimental results reported on Tokamaks from the Soviet Union.