Robert Lyster Thornton

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Lyster Thornton (November 29, 1908 - September 28, 1985), was born at Wooton, Bedfordshire, England, the son of a mechanical engineer, Dudley L. Thornton, and his wife Katherine Foster. He was educated in Canada, where his family went in his youth, his father being employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway. He attended McGill University for seven years, earning the B.Sc. degree in 1930 and obtaining the Ph.D. degree in physics, under the sponsorship of Stuart Foster, in 1933. His thesis research was on atomic spectroscopy and the Stark effect, an area successfully cultivated by his mentor.