Burton David Fried, emeritus professor of physics at UCLA, died in Palm Desert, California, on 12 October 2002 after complications from surgery. He was warmly known as “Burt” to the broad international community of plasma scientists and fusion researchers in which, for three decades, he played a leading role as a creative scientist and spokesman.
Burt was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 14 December 1925. He enlisted in the US Navy during World War II and was trained as a radio technician; his duty, though, was confined to the nearby Great Lakes.
Following the war, Burt attended the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he received his BS in physics in 1947. He then attended the University of Chicago, where he earned his MS in physics in 1950 and subsequently completed his PhD in 1952. He was trained in theoretical particle physics under the guidance of Gregor Wentzel. As a graduate student, Burt contributed to the theoretical description of the electron–neutron interaction and its relation to pseudoscalar meson theory. To support himself at graduate school, Burt worked as a physics instructor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
After completing his dissertation, Burt joined the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory originally with the intention of working with Robert Oppenheimer, who left before Burt arrived. On completion of his postdoctoral appointment in 1954, Burt was hired by Simon Ramo to join the scientific staff of a new company that became TRW Inc (now a part of Northrop Grumman Inc). Early in his TRW career, Burt published various papers on the general formulation of powered-flight optimization problems. In 1960, he was named director of the research laboratory in TRW’s computer division. With Glen Culler, he developed a pioneering online computational platform known as the Culler–Fried system, which predated the modern-day PC-based computational software used routinely by physicists and other scientists. With Murray Gell-Mann, John D. Jackson, and Robert Schrieffer, Burt coauthored research papers that highlighted the usefulness of the system in solving physics problems. In the early 1960s, he started to work on theoretical plasma physics problems.
Burt made many seminal contributions to the study of plasmas. One of his more influential works was The Plasma Dispersion Function: The Hilbert Transform of the Gaussian (Academic Press, 1961), which he coauthored with Samuel Conte. Their book presented an analysis of the Z-function, which describes the kinetic linear response of a Maxwellian plasma, including the Landau damping process, and is used widely to study plasma properties ranging from space plasmas to the design of fusion reactors. The study of this function is a required element in graduate plasma courses taught throughout the world.
Burt’s research focused on the theoretical understanding of linear and nonlinear waves in plasmas. He contributed extensively to the study of ion acoustic waves in hot plasmas. In their influential research paper in 1961, he and Roy Gould identified the threshold conditions required to trigger the growth of ion oscillations by a population of drifting electrons. That threshold is of fundamental importance in predicting the behavior of laboratory and naturally occurring plasmas in which an electrical current flows. Another theoretical discovery to which Burt made key contributions is what is now known as the Fried–Weibel instability. This important mechanism, which Burt and Eric Weibel first identified in 1959, relates to the relaxation of plasmas having anisotropic temperatures and is of great significance to space plasmas and to energetic particle beams.
In 1963, the legendary professor Alfredo Baños Jr of UCLA recruited Burt to help him develop a research group in the emerging field of plasma physics. Burt joined the physics faculty of UCLA as a full professor, although he continued to be associated with TRW as a senior staff physicist until 1986. In addition to his creative scientific activities, Burt brought unique capabilities to the UCLA academic environment. He combined an innate ability to identify technical talent with his managerial experience to assemble one of the world’s leading plasma research groups. For nearly 30 years, Burt nourished the development of the UCLA plasma group and watched with satisfaction while his protégés grew into accomplished leaders of the field. He retired from UCLA in 1991.
A strong advocate of magnetic fusion as the ultimate energy source for humankind, Burt chaired the American Physical Society’s division of plasma physics in 1979 and was the founding editor of the journal Comments on Plasma and Controlled Fusion . His activities and influence crossed international boundaries, and over the years he developed close relationships with scientists in Japan and the former Soviet Union. He was one of the first American plasma physicists to travel to Japan and was instrumental in bringing young Japanese scientists to the US. His efforts have evolved into major long-term collaborations in the plasma/fusion area.
Burt was a demanding but fair individual who readily passed along credit to those who deserved it. He was a warm and encouraging mentor, which made him beloved of his students and postdocs. He read widely and had a deep knowledge of music. He enjoyed practicing magic and in his younger days was quite good at it.
