Robert L. Hickok, Jr.
1929-2009
- Obituary Published by the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society
- RPDL History
- Early Beam-Probing (Buzz Jobes)
- Editorial Introducing the HIBP Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Aug 1994 (Tom Crowley and Ken Connor)
- Bob's History of HIBP from the HIBP Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science,, Aug 1994
- The seminal Phys Rev Letter from 1969 (Jobes, Marshall, Hickok)
- HIBP Patent (Jobes, Hickok)
- Report on US-Japan HIBP Collaboration -- Part 1 (Iguchi, Hamada, Fujisawa), Part 2 (Connor) Published in 1999.
- Prof. Hickok (H. Iguchi)
- Working with Bob (Bill Jennings)
- Photos
- Testimonials
- Buzz Jobes: Bob Hickok was my mentor for nine years during which I grew into a physicist who could create good physics experiments. I believe I was his first
protégé. I know that subsequently he was mentor to many younger physicists, creating a whole army of beam probers. I shall keep the memories, but be sad at his passing.
- Soli Ghandhi: The best move I made while Chairman of the Electrophysics Division was to convince Bob to come to RPI in 1971. From that time, until his retirement, we enjoyed a close relationship as both friends and colleagues. He was an extremely productive member of our department; the Brightest Star in our Firmament. I am proud to have been associated with him, and shall miss him.
- Ray Scarpetti: I was very sorry to hear about Bob. He was a great teacher and a great person and I learned much from him.
- Andrew Steckl: I was very saddened to learn of Bob Hickok's death. Please transmit my condolences to his family.
- Igor Nedzelskiy: I am very, very sorry to hear this sad news. Please say my condolence to Bob's relatives. We will remember Bob as a very nice man and great scientists. His invention of heavy ion beam probe diagnostic is recognized all around the world and is working on many nuclear fusion plasma devices. My carreer and achievements are strongly associated with Bob's scientific outputs.
- Sasha Melnikov: It is a very sad for me to know Bob passed away. We, all members of HIBP group in Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, respect him as a Father of HIBP. He had opened a very intriguing area in plasma research, the HIBP diagnostics, which becomes a main tool to study the electric potential in the core of modern thermonuclear plasma facilities and still has many promising ideas and developments. HIBP possibilities are far from being completed or escaped. HIBP becomes popular in stellarators, each modern stellarator has an HIBP in operation, like LHD, TJ-II, WEGA, or in plans, like Heliotron - J or W7-X, URAGAN-2M, L-2M. Bob was an outstanding person, able to run a research and to create a brilliant team of his students and followers. I personally met Bob at his time of Professor Emeritus in RPI. I was impressed by his deep knowledge and personal kindness. My deep condolences to you, Paul, Diane, John and family of Bob.
- Akihide Fujisawa: I am really sorry to hear about Professor Bob Hickok. I respect him as a great scientist and the inventor of the most powerful diagnostics of plasmas, which continue to give benefits to fusion scientists and plasma physicists. I will never forget his hospitality in my first visit to him at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I would like to pay my heartfelt compliments to his greatest achievements once more.
- Reece Roth: (Directed to Bob's family) It may be difficult for you to fully appreciate the important place Bob's work has in the field of plasma science, and the high regard in which it is held by his colleagues. Perhaps I can help by shedding some additional light on this aspect of Bob's life. I first became aware of Bob and his work on heavy ion beam probing of plasmas through his seminal publication in the Physical Review Letters (PRL) [F. C. Jobes, J. F. Marshall, and R. L. Hickok, “Plasma Density Measurement by Ion-Beam Probing” PRL, Vol. 22, 1969, pp 1042-1045]. The plasma state of matter is very difficult to diagnose, and this paper was the first to do time-resolved, tomographic slices of a low pressure but high density arc plasma. This paper was several decades ahead of its time and, among other things made it possible to measure the radial electric field, and fluctuations of density and potential of fusion-related plasmas with time and spatial resolutions that were not possible by other methods. The elaboration of heavy ion beam probing for fusion applications occupied Bob and his colleagues at RPI until his retirement, and provided important information to many of the major fusion experiments of the Department of Energy. Bob was so far ahead of his time that his important results of 1969 on arc phenomenology have still not been incorporated into the mainstream of arc research. These results include his finding that arcs are asymmetric about their axis of rotation, and that they contain rotating spokes that rotate with a frequency of hundreds of kiloHertz. I considered his arc results of sufficient importance that I included several pages and figures on his 1969 paper in Chapter 10 (on arc discharges) in Volume I of my book, “Industrial Plasma Engineering”. For many years, I taught a graduate course on Plasma Diagnostics, and always devoted six or eight hours to the principles and to summarizing the results of Bob's RPI group.
- Kuorosh Saadatmand: Sorry to hear the news. Bob was a great mentor.
- Harry Stephanou: I am very sorry to hear about this.
- Charlie Close: I always thought very highly of Bob as an ECSE contributor and as an individual. I especially remember the patient nourishment of his students, as well his gentle, helpful advice to all of us.
- Gary Hallock: Bob will be missed. Bob was a great leader and a tremendous inspiration. He launched many of our careers, including mine.
- Stewart Prager: I am very sorry to hear about Bob's passing.
- Pat Colestock: Bob has touched so many of us with his kindness and generosity, his intelligence and creativity. A life well-lived and someone we can all aspire to.
- Lief Solensten : In addition to his knowledge and creativity, Bob pursued his work with a level of passion and energy that everyone admired. His enthusiasm was contagious and inspired everyone around him to do their best. He was a strong leader, yet always treated his students with the greatest respect. It was an honor and privilege to have worked for him.
- Ken Rose: I am sorry to hear that Bob passed away. Please extend my condolences to his family.
- Jim Tien: Although Bob was not my mentor, I still remember sitting in his office and marveling about and soaking up his insights.
- Spencer Kuo: Bob and you offered me the first job that helped me to start my career. Bob was a great leader and an excellent scientist. We will all miss him.
- Leon Shohet: I am so sorry to hear the news about Bob. I shall miss him greatly.
- Tom Price: Bob was a friend, inspiration, and great scientist. We will all miss him.
- Kambiz Pourrezaei: Bob was a great gentleman, a great experimentalist and a fine human being. We all benefited from knowing him.
- Josh Kolawole: A big part of all of us just died. Bob made me a better student of nature through his desire for truth, dedication to science, thirst for knowledge, and his strong belief in not sacrificing our principles. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to study under Bob and learned so much from him.
- Arjun Saxena: I am very sorry to learn about Bob Hickok's sad demise. Please convey my family's and my heartfelt condolences to the Hickok family.
- Alan Chachich: What a difference a single life can make. I appreciated being accepted into his group at RPI. The rigorous
hands-on education I received from him and others there has been part of the foundation for my own career and life. And mine was just one of many lives so touched. I hope that gives his family some heart. He was a bright and civil man. I'm sorry to see him go.
- Badri Roysam: One of the most gentlemanly colleagues I have known.
- Ken Vastola: Yes, that's a good word. He was a gentleman. And a wise colleague. Sorry to hear of his passing.
- Art Sanderson: I'm very sorry to hear of Bob's passing. He was a great help to me in coming to RPI, and will be greatly missed.
- Paul Chow: Sorry to hear Bob Hickok's passing. I have the misfortune of never meeting him. From what you and others have said,
he was a great researcher and a gentleman - a rare trait indeed these days. He and his generation of RPI faculties have set
such a high standard that we, the young(er) folks, find it very challenging to meet (but we will try).
- Ken Connor: I have told many, many people that I was exceptionally lucky to have Bob as my mentor and friend here at RPI. I enjoyed every day we worked together for the 20 years we shared. He was a gentleman and a true scholar.
Last Updated on 24 April 2009
Please send comments or suggestions to Ken Connor (connor at rpi dot edu)
