[2] He is best known for creation of the multitaper method of spectral estimation, first published in complete form in 1982 in a special issue of Proceedings of the IEEE.
[4] Thomson and Bell Labs colleagues Carol G. Maclennan and Louis J. Lanzerotti authored a 1995 Nature paper in which they showed evidence that the magnetic signatures of the Sun's normal modes permeate the interplanetary magnetic field as far as Jupiter.
[5] He has written over 100 other peer-reviewed journal articles in the fields of statistics, space physics, climatology and paleoclimatology, and seismology.
Thomson joined the Technical Staff at Bell Labs in 1965, where he was assigned to work on the WT4 Millimeter Waveguide System and the Advanced Mobile Phone Service project.
During this time, he was On retirement from Bell Labs, Thomson took a Canada Research Chair at Queen's University at Kingston, where he has remained to this date.[when?]