David Gilbert Thomas

David Gilbert Thomas (4 August 1928, London, England – 9 May 2015, Torrington, Connecticut) was a chemist and solid-state physicist, known for his work at Bell Labs on the optical properties of semiconductors.

[2][3] From 1952 to 1954 he was a researcher for the Royal Military College in Kingston, Canada, and then in 1954 joined Bell Laboratories, where he worked for 38 years.

[1]In 1969 he received, for joint research with John Hopfield,[4] the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize of the American Physical Society.

His chief activity here was to oversee the development and design of a variety of transmission systems, and to assist in their introduction into manufacture.

One of the challenges that arose were sharks who, sensing the magnetic field created by the cable's high voltage, bit them.