Restrictions on Access
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Preferred Citation
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Processing Information
UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography/History
Scope and Content
Organization and Arrangement
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: A. Theodore Forrester papers
Creator:
Forrester, A. Theodore
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.1978
Physical Description:
1.5 Linear Feet
(3 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1985-1987
Abstract: Theodore Forrester was a renowned physicist, engineer and inventor, famous for his research in ionization, quantum optics,
and satellite acceleration. The collection contains research, drafts, publications, and publisher's correspondence concerning
Forrester's work on ionization.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Restrictions on Access
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Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], A. Theodore Forrester Papers (Collection 1978). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Gift of Terry Crow, 16 July 1997.
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Processed by Benjamin Formaker-Olivas and Lilace Hatayama, August 2012.
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UCLA Catalog Record ID
Biography/History
Theodore Forrester (1918-1987) was a renowned physicist, engineer and inventor, famous for his research in ionization, quantum
optics, and satellite acceleration. Forrester received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1942. He then worked on the
Manhattan Project at the University of California Radiation Lab in Berkeley. He worked in the private sector (including RCA
Laboratories, Westinghouse Research Labs, and International and Rocketdyne Divisions of North America) and academic institutions,
including USC, the University of Pittsburgh, and UC Irvine. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1967. At UCLA he was a member
of both the Physics Department and the Electrical Engineering Department, working on the physics of ionized gases (plasmas),
specializing in plasma sheaths and plasma sources. His last work, Large Ion Beams: Fundamentals of Generation and Propagation,
was finished weeks before his death in 1987 and published the same year.
Forrester was a popular teacher of physics, electromagnetics, and plasma physics and an active member of the Academic Senate
and the Academic Freedom and Faculty Welfare Committees. He was a political activist as well, speaking out against the Vietnam
War, nuclear proliferation, U.S. intervention in Central America and the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Extracted from In Memoriam, University of California Academic Senate.
Scope and Content
Collection consists of materials related to the career of A. Theodore Forrester and his work on ionization. Included are
research, drafts, publications, publisher's correspondence, mostly related to his book Large Ion Beams.
Organization and Arrangement
Arranged in the following series:
1. Publications on ionization.
2. Publications on ionization by A. Theodore Forrester.
3. Articles on the analysis of ionization.
4. Resonance, Radiation, Excitation, Ionization by A. Theodore Forrester.
5. Surface ionization reprints
6. Draft of Large Ion Beams
7. Letter to A. Theodore Forrester from Harold R. Kaufman concerning Soviet Union thruster research.
8. Notes concerning ionization.
9. Book correspondence and publication information.
10. Unsorted notes.
11. Index to notebooks and unsorted references.
12. Correspondence with publishers.
13. Outline, introduction, and notes for A Broad Uniform Unidirectional Ion Source by A. Theodore Forrester and J. T. Crow,
N. A. Massie and D. Scott Goebel.
14. Large Ion Beams.