Obituary of Raymon Carpenter (1929-2011)

Raymon Thompson Carpenter, known as both Ray and Tom, of Lady Lake, FL, died unexpectedly while visiting New Orleans, LA, on Sunday, September 11, 2011. Born in Topeka, Kansas, on January 14, 1929, Tom served in the US Navy for two years before attending the University of Kansas. He graduated from Kansas in 1954 with a BS in engineering physics. After receiving a MS in physics from Kansas in 1954, Tom then went to Northwestern University where he was awarded a PhD in physics in 1962 for research done under the guidance of L. M. Bollinger at Argonne National Laboratory.

Tom joined the faculty at The University of Iowa as an assistant professor in the physics department in September of 1962, where he remained until his retirement in 1996. An experimental physicist, Tom initially worked with the department’s Van de Graaff group studying the properties of excited states in light nuclei. He switched his research interests to experimental plasma physics in the late seventies. He initially collaborated with Noah Hershkowitz studying multidipole devices and later received a research grant to study ion plasma thrusters for space propulsion. He spent several summers and sabbatical leaves at the Alfvén Laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden, where he collaborated with Stefan Torvén on double layer research. He constructed a large triple-plasma device in his laboratory at the University of Iowa, where with his graduate students, he investigated Langmuir turbulence associated with double layers.

Tom was an inspirational and dedicated teacher, who was able to communicate his passion for physics to his students. Many generations of students will remember the clarity and enthusiasm of his lectures. This is particularly true for the nineteen graduate students who completed their theses under his direction.

After retiring from the University in 1996, Tom lived in Shelburne, Vermont and Lady Lake, Florida, where he could enjoy his lifelong passions: playing golf, listening to jazz music, downhill skiing, and traveling the world with his wife Martha.

Robert Merlino

Gerald Payne