Richard Freeman Post (14 November 1918–7 April 2015)

[摘要] Richard Freeman Post, a member of the Nuclear Fusion Board of Editors in 1976 and againin the 1990s, passed away April 7, 2015 [1]. He was 96. Dick Post initiated magnetic mirrorresearch in the US and served as Deputy Associate Director for Magnetic Fusion Energy atthe Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dick contributed three seminal ideas—yin-yang mirrors, high current neutral beams and a way to stabilize mirror plasmas—thatculminated in the first demonstration of a plasma at thermonuclear temperatures, in the2XIIB experiment in 1976. He also invented a method for direct conversion of plasmaenergy to electricity as a way to improve the efficiency of mirror fusion reactors. His reviewpapers published in 1956 in Reviews of Modern Physics and in 1959 in Annual Reviewof Nuclear Science were among the first consistent reviews of hot plasmas for controlledfusion. These influential papers were immediately translated into Russian and publishedin Russia; the 1959 paper as a separate book. In 1987, Dick published a comprehensivereview of mirror research that filled the whole October issue of Nuclear Fusion [2]. Dickalso pioneered research on high-speed flywheel energy storage employing novel magneticbearings that presaged a new approach to magnetically levitated trains. He remained activelyengaged in mirror research and in early 2000 came up with an idea of a ‘kinetic stabilizer’for axisymmetric tandem mirrors.