University of Nottingham, pioneer of the TLM method, our colIeague and friend, died suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday, 19th June 1988, at the age of 49.
Over the last fifteen years of his life, Professor Johns won international recognition for his pioneering work on computer numerical simulation for engineering analysis. Jointly with Professor R. L. Beurle he invented an entirely new concept for time discretizing in numerical methods for digital computation, which he called the Transmission-Line Modelling (TLM) method of analysis. Developed originally for solving electromagnetic wave problems in three-dimensional space and time, the TLM concept is now used extensively in the design of wave guiding structures and magnetrons. Its current applications include electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) problems, optical systems, heat diffusion, non-linear electrical lumped networks, mine ventilation networks, food processing, mechanical friction, and moving boundary problems.
Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he received his BSc (Eng) in 1964 from the Polytechnic of Central London, and his MSc in 1966 from the Battersea College of Technology, while employed by the British Post Office. In 1967 he joined the University of Nottingharn, where he obtained his PhD degree with a thesis on 'The Transmission-Line Matrix Method of Waveguide Analysis', and where he continued his distinguished career, first as a Lecturer and a Reader, then as a Professor of Information Systems. During the last two years of his life he was Head of his Department. In 1978 he founded Kimberley Communications Consultants (KCC) Ltd. jointly with Professor T. Rowbotham of British Telecom, providing extensive consulting services to industry and government institutions throughout the world.
Professor Johns realized very early the importance of numerical modelling for all areas of modern