Ted Bastin

Who is Ted Bastin?

Edward William "Ted" Bastin was a physicist and mathematician who held doctorate degrees in mathematics from Queen Mary College, London University and physics from Kings College, Cambridge University, to which he won an Isaac Newton studentship. For a time, he was Visiting Fellow at Stanford University, California and a Research Fellow, King's College, Cambridge University, England.

Among the boats stored at the River Cam boathouse, King's College, Cambridge University include "Ted", the lightweight wooden scull named after Ted Bastin, who won races in it for King's from 1950 to 1953.

Bastin’s research specialties included the foundations of physics, especially the discrete and finite aspects of quantum mechanics and relativity. He was strongly influenced as a student by Eddington's vision of the nature of the quantum.

He collaborated with David Bohm to organize the "Quantum Theory and Beyond" colloquium at Cambridge University in July 1968, chaired by O. R. Frisch. The colloquium was sponsored by the Royal Society, Carnegie Institution of Science, and Theoria Inc., and resulted in a book by the same name. Bastin worked with David Bohm on other theoretical physics projects as well.