| Authorised form of name | Wood; Robert Williams (1868 - 1955); physicist and inventor |
| Dates | 1868 - 1955 |
| Nationality | American |
| Place of birth | Concord, Massachusetts, USA |
| Date of birth | 02 May 1868 |
| Place of death | Amityville, New York, USA |
| Date of death | 11 August 1955 |
| Occupation | Physicist and inventor |
| Research field | Phosphorescence |
| Spectroscopy |
| Physics |
| Optics |
| Activity | Education:
Roxbury Latin School; Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; University of Chicago
Career:
Professor of optical physics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA (1901-1955).
Awards/Medals:
John Scott Medal 1908
Guthrie Lecture 1914
Matteucci Medal 1918
Frederic Ives Medal 1933
Henry Draper Medal 1940 |
| Membership category | Foreign Member |
| Date of election | 26/06/1919 |
| Age at election | 51 |
| Proposer | Arthur Schuster |
| James Whitbread Lee Glaisher |
| Frank Watson Dyson |
| James Swinburne |
| William Halse Rivers Rivers |
| William Bate Hardy |
| William Abbott Herdman |
| RSActivity | Medals and prizes:
Rumford Medal 1938 |
| Relationships | Parents: Robert Williams Wood, Senior, physician.
Spouse: (m. 1892) Gertrude Hooper Ames, daughter of Pelham Warren and Augusta Hooper (Wood) Ames, and granddaughter of William Northey Hooper and the Massachusetts Supreme Court justice Seth Ames. |
| PublishedWorks | RCN 13355
RCN 12912 |
| OtherInfo | Distinguished for research on light and radiation.
Made substantial contributions to ultrasound by photographing sound waves and investigating high-power ultrasonics.
Known for the capillary wave, fisheye lens, gradient-index optics, Wood effect, Wood's anomaly, Wood's glass, Wood's lamp. |
| Royal Society Obituary or Memoir | Click to view (may be contained within a meeting notice, presidential address or list of death notices) |
| Related images | Discover a selection of related images in our picture library |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll
Obituaries:
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1956 vol 2 pp 327-345, plate, by G H Dieke
References:
J C D Brand, 'The Discovery of the Raman Effect' in NR 1989 vol 43 pp 1-23
R Singh and F Riess, 'The nobel laureate Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman FRS and his contacts with the British Scientific community in a social and political context' in NR 2004 vol 58 pp 47-64 |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/29600638 |
| Code | NA5783 |
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/004988 | Wood, Robert Williams | 1937 |
| IM/007141 | Group photograph | 1911 |
| NLB/20/687 | Copy letter from an unknown correspondent, to Messrs Harrison & Sons, St Martin's Lane | 18 June 1900 |
| NLB/21/111 | Copy letter from Theodore E James, to Messrs Harrison & Sons, St Martin's Lane | 30 July 1900 |
| NLB/23/1/141 | Copy letter from Robert William Frederick Harrison, to Professor Robert Williams Wood, [Fellow of the Royal Society] | 1 October 1901 |
| MS/928/2/197 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, San Francisco, California, to Charles Vernon Boys | 28 August 1900 |
| MS/928/2/199 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Holderness, New Hampshire, to Charles Vernon Boys | 6 September 1901 |
| MS/928/2/196 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 237 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin, to Charles Vernon Boys | 5 April 1900 |
| MS/928/2/200 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Physical Laboratory, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, to Charles Vernon Boys | 21 November 1901 |
| MS/928/2/194 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 237 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin, to Charles Vernon Boys | 10 December 1899 |
| MS/928/2/195 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 237 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin, to Charles Vernon Boys | 13 January [1900] |
| NLB/58/905 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Dr. [Thomas Ralph] Merton, FRS | 2 July 1920 |
| NLB/59/234 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [Robert Williams] Wood, FRS | 29 July 1920 |
| NLB/59/120 | Copy letter from Edwin Deller, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to Professor [Robert Williams] Wood, FRS; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, M.D., U.S.A. | 19 July 1920 |
| NLB/67/105 | Copy letter from Francis Alexander Towle, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society; to [Robert Williams] Wood Esq., ForMemRS | 23 October 1924 |
| RR/62/101 | Referee's report by Robert Robertson, on a paper 'Optical and physical effects of high explosives' by Robert Williams Wood | [July 1936] |
| RR/71/282 | Referee's report by Thomas Ralph Merton, on a paper 'Spontaneous deformation of protocatechuic acid crystals' by Robert Williams Wood | 1948 |
| CD/24/4 | Letter from [Robert Williams] Wood, Long Island, to the President and Fellows of the Royal Society | 28 July 1919 |
| EC/1919/24 | Wood, Robert Williams: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| MS/928/2/198 | Letter from Robert Williams Wood, Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, 237 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin, to Charles Vernon Boys | 20 May 1901 |
| RR/73/22 | Referee's report by Robert Williams Wood, on a paper 'Travelling disturbances in the ionosphere' by G H Munro | 1950 |
| ACS/1/1/439/62 | Letter from [Robert Williams] Wood, Physical Laboratory, The John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, to [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton | 29 February 1928 |
| ACS/1/2/2/431 | Letter from [Alan Archibald Campbell] Swinton, to Professor [Robert Williams] Wood, F. R. S. | 20 May 1927 |