Background
Lidsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 15, 1935.
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Lawrence Lidsky
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Cornell University.
Career
He did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, graduating in 1958, and earned a doctorate in nuclear engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962 with a thesis entitled "Plasma Generation and Acceleration", after which he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty. Lidsky was the advisor to more than 80 graduate students and the founding editor of the Journal of Fusion Energy. In 1983, as assistant director for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Fusion Center, Lidsky wrote an influential article about the difficulties of making a working nuclear fusion power plant.
The ensuing reduction in federal funding for fusion research led him to resign from the center, and caused him to be "drummed out" of the nuclear fusion research community.
Because of his concerns with the viability of fusion power, he instead became an advocate for safer nuclear fission reactor designs. In 1999 he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science "for outstanding contributions to both nuclear fission and fusion in education, research, system design and analysis, technical publications and federal policy".
He died March 1, 2002 in Newton, Massachusetts, after struggling with cancer for many years.
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Born
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Died
2002 (aged 66)