Ponder Stibbons is a wizard in the fictional universe of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. He is employed at the Unseen University as the Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, Praelector, and as the Reader in Invisible Writings. He does most of his work in collaboration with students at the University's High Energy Magic building.

His first appearance is as a student wizard in Moving Pictures (1990). His roommate was Victor Tugelbend, who gained a large inheritance by always getting an exam score of between 80% and 88% (his inheritance would be taken from him if he ever got less than 80%, and he didn't want to get 88% (passing grade) or more because being a graduate wizard was something he did not look forward to). The senior wizards decided to trap Victor and gave him an exam paper with only one question: "what is your name?" Victor, however, missed that particular exam and Ponder, having accidentally destroyed his own exam paper, used Victor's instead.

He was surprised to find only one question and tried to take as long as possible answering it: "The answer to question One is: Ponder Stibbons. Which is what my name is." His entry in The New Discworld Companion states: 'originally rather lazy by nature, he seems to have blossomed to become the youngest and most depressingly keen member of the UU faculty...as one of the few wizards at the University with his head screwed on in any fashion, he appears, quite against his will, to be in the front line'.

From here onwards he is one of the major wizards in the books. Ponder likes to think of himself as the University's token sane person. In The Science of Discworld, a book which interleaved a story set on the Discworld and real world science, Stibbons creates a device for splitting the thaum, once believed to be the smallest unit of magical radiation particles.

The creation of this device borrows heavily from the real world splitting of the atom.

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