Career
Tonks was employed by the General Electric for most of his working life, researching microwaves and ferromagnetism. He worked under Irving Langmuir on plasma physics, with a special interest in ball lightning, nuclear fusion, tungsten filament light bulbs, and lasers. Tonks advocated a logarithmic pressure scale for vacuum technology to replace the torr.
Tonks was notable for his high ethical standards and concern with social problems.
Several times, he put up bail money for people who could not afford to do southern He provided career counselling for the poor, and after retiring from General Electric worked as a volunteer for the Schenectady Human Rights Commission.
He also campaigned on Vietnam war issues. In July 1971, Tonks died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-four.
Shortly thereafter, the collection was deposited at the Niels Bohr Library of the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland.