Alan Tower Waterman
Alan Tower Waterman was an American physicist. Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, he grew up in Massachusetts, his father was a professor of physics at Smith College. Alan became a physicist, doing his undergraduate and doctoral work at Princeton University, from which he obtained his Ph. D. in 1916. He joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, married Vassar graduate Mary Mallon there in August 1917, he became a professor at Yale University, moved to North Haven, Connecticut in 1929. During World War II, he took leave of absence from Yale to become director of field operations for the Office of Scientific Research and Development, the family moved to Cambridge, MA, he became deputy chief of the Office of Naval Research. In 1950, he was appointed by President Truman as first director of the U. S. National Science Foundation. Waterman was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1960, he served as director until 1963, when he retired and was subsequently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He died in 1967. Alan and Mary had six children: Alan Jr. an atmospheric physicist who taught at Stanford University, Barbara and Guy, writer and conservationist. A daughter Mary died in childhood. Possessed of a gentle nature, Alan Waterman was known for his calm and reasoned point of view, he believed in public service. Besides his scientific talents, he was an accomplished musician, revealing his sense of humor by walking the corridors of the National Science Foundation playing his bagpipes, he had a fine voice and singing together was a family ritual. An avid outdoorsman, Dr. Waterman canoed the rivers and lakes of northern Maine during extensive summer trips in the 1930s and 1940s, he was accompanied by his sons and colleagues, in particular Karl Compton president of MIT. Dr. Waterman was known to say that becoming a licensed Maine Guide meant more to him than his NSF appointment; the crater Waterman on the Moon is named after him, as is Mount Waterman in the Hughes Range of Antarctica. Since 1975, the National Science Foundation has annually issued the Alan T. Waterman Award to a promising young researcher.
Brown, Chip. Good Morning Midnight. Riverhead Books. ISBN 1-57322-236-4. Waterman, Laura. Losing the Garden: The Story of a Marriage. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-048-5. National Science Foundation biography page for Waterman
Wilhelm Röntgen
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. In honour of his accomplishments, in 2004 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry named element 111, roentgenium, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him. Born to a German father and a Dutch mother, Röntgen attended high school in Netherlands. In 1865, he was unfairly expelled from high school when one of his teachers intercepted a caricature of one of the teachers, in fact done by someone else. Without a high school diploma, Röntgen could only attend university in the Netherlands as a visitor. In 1865, he tried to attend Utrecht University without having the necessary credentials required for a regular student. Upon hearing that he could enter the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, he passed its examinations, began studies there as a student of mechanical engineering.
In 1869, he graduated with a Ph. D. from the University of Zurich. In 1874, Röntgen became a lecturer at the University of Strassburg. In 1875, he became a professor at the Academy of Agriculture at Württemberg, he returned to Strassburg as a professor of physics in 1876, in 1879, he was appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Giessen. In 1888, he obtained the physics chair at the University of Würzburg, in 1900 at the University of Munich, by special request of the Bavarian government. Röntgen planned to emigrate, he accepted an appointment at Columbia University in New York City and bought transatlantic tickets, before the outbreak of World War I changed his plans. He remained in Munich for the rest of his career. During 1895, Röntgen was investigating the external effects from the various types of vacuum tube equipment — apparatuses from Heinrich Hertz, Johann Hittorf, William Crookes, Nikola Tesla and Philipp von Lenard — when an electrical discharge is passed through them. In early November, he was repeating an experiment with one of Lenard's tubes in which a thin aluminium window had been added to permit the cathode rays to exit the tube but a cardboard covering was added to protect the aluminium from damage by the strong electrostatic field that produces the cathode rays.
He knew the cardboard covering prevented light from escaping, yet Röntgen observed that the invisible cathode rays caused a fluorescent effect on a small cardboard screen painted with barium platinocyanide when it was placed close to the aluminium window. It occurred to Röntgen that the Crookes–Hittorf tube, which had a much thicker glass wall than the Lenard tube, might cause this fluorescent effect. In the late afternoon of 8 November 1895, Röntgen was determined to test his idea, he constructed a black cardboard covering similar to the one he had used on the Lenard tube. He covered the Crookes–Hittorf tube with the cardboard and attached electrodes to a Ruhmkorff coil to generate an electrostatic charge. Before setting up the barium platinocyanide screen to test his idea, Röntgen darkened the room to test the opacity of his cardboard cover; as he passed the Ruhmkorff coil charge through the tube, he determined that the cover was light-tight and turned to prepare the next step of the experiment.
It was at this point that Röntgen noticed a faint shimmering from a bench a few feet away from the tube. To be sure, he saw the same shimmering each time. Striking a match, he discovered the shimmering had come from the location of the barium platinocyanide screen he had been intending to use next. Röntgen speculated. 8 November was a Friday, so he took advantage of the weekend to repeat his experiments and made his first notes. In the following weeks he ate and slept in his laboratory as he investigated many properties of the new rays he temporarily termed "X-rays", using the mathematical designation for something unknown; the new rays came to bear his name in many languages as "Röntgen rays". At one point while he was investigating the ability of various materials to stop the rays, Röntgen brought a small piece of lead into position while a discharge was occurring. Röntgen thus saw the first radiographic image, his own flickering ghostly skeleton on the barium platinocyanide screen, he reported that it was at this point that he determined to continue his experiments in secrecy, because he feared for his professional reputation if his observations were in error.
Nearly two weeks after his discovery, he took the first picture using X-rays of his wife Anna Bertha's hand. When she saw her skeleton she exclaimed "I have seen my death!" He made a better picture of his friend Albert von Kölliker's hand at a public lecture. Röntgen's original paper, "On A New Kind Of Rays", was published on 28 December 1895. On 5 January 1896, an Austrian newspaper reported Röntgen's discovery of a new type of radiation. Röntgen was awarded an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Würzburg after his discovery, he published a total of three papers on X-rays between 1895 and 1897. Today, Röntgen is considered the father of diagnostic radiology, the medical speciality which uses imaging to diagnose disease. A collection of his papers is held at the National Library of Medicine in Maryland. Röntgen was married to Ann
Harold A. Wilson (physicist)
Harold Albert Wilson FRS was an English physicist. Wilson was born in the son of a railway clerk, his mother, Anne Gill, was the daughter of a innkeeper from Topcliffe. Harold had one sister, who would marry Sir Owen W. Richardson. Wilson was educated at Yorkshire College in Leeds, the University of Leeds and the University of Berlin. In 1896 he was a colleague of English physicist J. J. Thomson in Cambridge, performed one of the earliest measurements of the electron's charge, he was awarded his Doctor of Science degree from London in 1900, was elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1901. From 1901 to 1904, he held a James Clerk Maxwell fellowship at the Cavendish Laboratory, he became a lecturer in Physics at King's College London professor at the college in 1905. In 1909 he was a professor at McGill University in Montreal, he joined the Rice Institute in 1912. He spent a year at the University of Glasgow in 1924 before becoming a physicist for an oil company in Houston, he retired from Rice University in 1947.
Wilson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Wilson Award at Rice University is named after him
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for humankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in recognition of the extraordinary services he rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and regarded as the most prestigious award that a scientist can receive in physics, it is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. Through 2018, a total of 209 individuals have been awarded the prize. Only three women have won the Nobel Prize in Physics: Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963, Donna Strickland in 2018. Alfred Nobel, in his last will and testament, stated that his wealth be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in the fields of physics, peace, physiology or medicine, literature.
Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last one was written a year before he died and was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets, 31 million Swedish kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. Due to the level of skepticism surrounding the will, it was not until April 26, 1897 that it was approved by the Storting; the executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, who formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobel's fortune and organise the prizes. The members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved; the prize-awarding organisations followed: the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on June 11. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundation's newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II.
According to Nobel's will, The Royal Swedish Academy of sciences were to award the Prize in Physics. A maximum of three Nobel laureates and two different works may be selected for the Nobel Prize in Physics. Compared with other Nobel Prizes, the nomination and selection process for the prize in Physics is long and rigorous; this is a key reason why it has grown in importance over the years to become the most important prize in Physics. The Nobel laureates are selected by the Nobel Committee for Physics, a Nobel Committee that consists of five members elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In the first stage that begins in September, around 3,000 people – selected university professors, Nobel Laureates in Physics and Chemistry, etc. – are sent confidential forms to nominate candidates. The completed nomination forms arrive at the Nobel Committee no than 31 January of the following year; these nominees are scrutinized and discussed by experts who narrow it to fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations on the final candidates into the Academy, where, in the Physics Class, it is further discussed.
The Academy makes the final selection of the Laureates in Physics through a majority vote. The names of the nominees are never publicly announced, neither are they told that they have been considered for the prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years. While posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can be made if the individual died in the months between the decision of the prize committee and the ceremony in December. Prior to 1974, posthumous awards were permitted; the rules for the Nobel Prize in Physics require that the significance of achievements being recognized has been "tested by time". In practice, it means that the lag between the discovery and the award is on the order of 20 years and can be much longer. For example, half of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for his work on stellar structure and evolution, done during the 1930s; as a downside of this approach, not all scientists live long enough for their work to be recognized.
Some important scientific discoveries are never considered for a prize, as the discoverers die by the time the impact of their work is appreciated. A Physics Nobel Prize laureate earns a gold medal, a diploma bearing a citation, a sum of money; the Nobel Prize medals, minted by Myntverket in Sweden and the Mint of Norway since 1902, are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. Each medal has an image of Alfred Nobel in left profile on the obverse; the Nobel Prize medals for Physics, Physiology or Medicine, Literature have identical obverses, showing the image of Alfred Nobel and the years of his birth and death. Nobel's portrait appears on the obverse of the Nobel Peace Prize medal and the Medal for the Prize in Economics, but with a different design; the image on the reverse of a medal varies according to the institution awarding the prize. The reverse sides of the Nobel Prize medals for Chemistry and Physics share the same design of Nature, as a Goddess, whose veil is held up by the Genius of Science.
These medals and the ones for Physiology/Medicine and Literature were designed by Erik Lindberg in 1902. Nobel laureates receive a diploma directly from the hands of the
Hughes Medal
The Hughes Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences electricity and magnetism or their applications". Named after David E. Hughes, the medal is awarded with a gift of £1000; the medal was first awarded in 1902 to J. J. Thomson "for his numerous contributions to electric science in reference to the phenomena of electric discharge in gases", has since been awarded over one-hundred times. Unlike other Royal Society medals, the Hughes Medal has never been awarded to the same individual more than once; the medal has on occasion been awarded to multiple people at a time. Source: Royal Society Note; as of 2011, the Hughes Medal has been awarded biennially. General"Hughes recent winners". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 19 June 2010. Retrieved 2009-02-05. "Hughes archive winners 1989 - 1902". Royal Society. Archived from the original on 19 June 2010. Retrieved 2009-02-05. Specific Royal Society: Hughes Medal
X-ray
X-rays make up X-radiation, a form of electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 100 eV to 100 keV. X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of UV rays and longer than those of gamma rays. In many languages, X-radiation is referred to with terms meaning Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen who discovered these on November 8, 1895, credited as its discoverer, who named it X-radiation to signify an unknown type of radiation. Spelling of X-ray in the English language includes the variants x-ray, X ray. Before their discovery in 1895 X-rays were just a type of unidentified radiation emanating from experimental discharge tubes, they were noticed by scientists investigating cathode rays produced by such tubes, which are energetic electron beams that were first observed in 1869. Many of the early Crookes tubes undoubtedly radiated X-rays, because early researchers noticed effects that were attributable to them, as detailed below.
Crookes tubes created free electrons by ionization of the residual air in the tube by a high DC voltage of anywhere between a few kilovolts and 100 kV. This voltage accelerated the electrons coming from the cathode to a high enough velocity that they created X-rays when they struck the anode or the glass wall of the tube; the earliest experimenter thought to have produced. In 1785 he presented a paper to the Royal Society of London describing the effects of passing electrical currents through a evacuated glass tube, producing a glow created by X-rays; this work was further explored by his assistant Michael Faraday. When Stanford University physics professor Fernando Sanford created his "electric photography" he unknowingly generated and detected X-rays. From 1886 to 1888 he had studied in the Hermann Helmholtz laboratory in Berlin, where he became familiar with the cathode rays generated in vacuum tubes when a voltage was applied across separate electrodes, as studied by Heinrich Hertz and Philipp Lenard.
His letter of January 6, 1893 to The Physical Review was duly published and an article entitled Without Lens or Light, Photographs Taken With Plate and Object in Darkness appeared in the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 1888, Philipp Lenard, a student of Heinrich Hertz, conducted experiments to see whether cathode rays could pass out of the Crookes tube into the air, he built a Crookes tube with a "window" in the end made of thin aluminum, facing the cathode so the cathode rays would strike it. He found that something came through, that would cause fluorescence, he measured the penetrating power of these rays through various materials. It has been suggested that at least some of these "Lenard rays" were X-rays. In 1889 Ukrainian-born Ivan Pulyui, a lecturer in experimental physics at the Prague Polytechnic who since 1877 had been constructing various designs of gas-filled tubes to investigate their properties, published a paper on how sealed photographic plates became dark when exposed to the emanations from the tubes.
Hermann von Helmholtz formulated mathematical equations for X-rays. He postulated a dispersion theory before Röntgen made his announcement, it was formed on the basis of the electromagnetic theory of light. However, he did not work with actual X-rays. In 1894 Nikola Tesla noticed damaged film in his lab that seemed to be associated with Crookes tube experiments and began investigating this radiant energy of "invisible" kinds. After Röntgen identified the X-ray, Tesla began making X-ray images of his own using high voltages and tubes of his own design, as well as Crookes tubes. On November 8, 1895, German physics professor Wilhelm Röntgen stumbled on X-rays while experimenting with Lenard tubes and Crookes tubes and began studying them, he wrote an initial report "On a new kind of ray: A preliminary communication" and on December 28, 1895 submitted it to Würzburg's Physical-Medical Society journal. This was the first paper written on X-rays. Röntgen referred to the radiation as "X"; the name stuck.
They are still referred to as such in many languages, including German, Danish, Swedish, Estonian, Japanese, Georgian and Norwegian. Röntgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery. There are conflicting accounts of his discovery because Röntgen had his lab notes burned after his death, but this is a reconstruction by his biographers: Röntgen was investigating cathode rays from a Crookes tube which he had wrapped in black cardboard so that the visible light from the tube would not interfere, using a fluorescent screen painted with barium platinocyanide, he noticed a faint green glow from the screen, about 1 meter away. Röntgen realized some invisible rays coming from the tube were passing through the cardboard to make the screen glow, he found they could pass through books and papers on his desk. Röntgen threw himself into investigating these unknown rays systematically. Two months after his initial discovery, he published his paper. Röntgen discovered their medical use when he made a picture of his wife's hand on a photographic plate formed due to X-rays.
The photograph of his wife's hand was the first photograph of a human body part using X-rays. When she saw the picture, she said "I have seen my death."The discovery of X-rays stimul
Batley Grammar School
Batley Grammar School is a co-educational free school located on Carlinghow Hill in Upper Batley, West Yorkshire, England. The school was founded in 1612 by the Rev. William Lee. An annual founder's day service is held in his memory at Batley Parish Church, as he requested in his will, although it is not held on the date specified. In 1878 the school moved to its current site at Upper Batley; the school selected boys on their performance in the eleven-plus exams, regardless of family background. Following the comprehensivisation of secondary education, the school became an independent public school in 1978 and entry became restricted to boys whose parents could afford its fees, it was a boys' grammar school but introduced girls into the sixth form in 1988 and became co-educational in 1996. More the school has returned to the maintained sector and was one of the first free schools to open in the country and the first of its kind in Yorkshire. In 2012 the school celebrated its quatercentenary. Batley Grammar School is a member of the Headmistresses' Conference.
A Junior school, named Priestley House is set in the grounds and is part of the Free School. The school has had several Royal visits and its playing fields are a site where the family land when the visiting the local area. Prince Andrew visited the school, as well as Princess Anne. Former pupils of the school are referred to as Old Batelians. Theodore Cooke Taylor, Liberal politician, Profit-sharing pioneer Benjamin Ingham and Moravian evangelist and preacher Joseph Priestley, natural philosopher, discoverer of oxygen Thomas Wormald, surgeon Sir Titus Salt, textile manufacturer and politician Sir Mark Oldroyd, woollen manufacturer and philanthropist Sir Owen Willans Richardson, Professor of Physics, Princeton University, 1906–1914, Wheatstone Professor of Physics, King's College London, 1914–1924, Yarrow Research Professor, Royal Society, 1924–1959, Nobel Prize in Physics Sir Herbert Holdsworth, 1890–1949, Liberal and Liberal National MP Samuel Sugden, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Birkbeck College, London, 1932–1937, Professor of Chemistry, University College London, 1937–1950 Horace Waller, World War I Victoria Cross winner Cecil Grayson, Serena Professor of Italian, University of Oxford, 1958–1988 Godfrey Lienhardt, anthropologist Andrew Milner, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Monash University Paul Trepte, Organist of Ely Cathedral Lawrence Tomlinson and philanthropist Richard Pearson, former English county cricketer Richard Reed, co-founder of innocent Drinks Richard Dawson, former English county cricketer Ismail Dawood, former English county cricketer Lukas Wooller, keyboardist with the band Maxïmo Park Andrew Firth, Michael Brooke and Ben Davies, members of indie-pop band The Dandys David Peace, Author Tim Fountain, Writer Lee Goddard - former English County Cricketer David Stiff, professional cricketer Gemma Atkinson, television personality and model List of English and Welsh endowed schools Official website of Batley Grammar School
