STPETT Raleigh

November 12, 1842, Mr.. - June 30, 1919
English physicist John William Stratton, the third Baron Rayleigh, was born in Lengford Grove, Maldon (Essex), son of John James Stratton (the second Baron Rayleigh) and Clara Elizabeth (nee Vickers) Stratton. As a boy, suffered from many debilitating diseases, and education is often interrupted. He briefly attended at ten years old Eton College, spent three years in a private school in Wimbledon, briefly studied at the Harrow-cheekbones and four years he took lessons in private. In 1861, Mr.. S. enrolled at Trinity College in Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and physics at the Z. J. Rous, the famous mathematician, and graduated with honors in 1865. A year later he was invited to become a member of the Academic Council of Trinity College. This post he held until 1871
In 1868, Mr.. S. created a scientific laboratory in his ancestral estate in Terlingen Place, Witham (Essex), which took up its interesting phenomena of radiation. As a result of these studies, he published articles on acoustics and optics, gaining an authoritative expert in these fields. In 1871, Mr.. He brought the ratio, known as the law of Rayleigh scattering of light, between the intensity of light scattering by very small particles and the length of its waves, which explains why the sky is blue, and sunset red. Since the shorter wavelengths (blue), mostly scattered in small particles in the atmosphere at large angles, the blue color dominates in the scattered light coming from above. Light as the setting sun, if you look directly at it, lose the blue due to side scattering, and it is dominated by longer wavelengths (red). In 1871, Mr.. S. traveled along the Nile, to regain his health after acute rheumatic fever. During this journey he began work, which was destined to become a fundamental research on the theory of sound.
When in 1873,. his father died, P. became the third Baron Rayleigh, and the owner of a family estate in 7 thousand. acres. But three years later, he asked his younger brother to take over those responsibilities, and from this moment on. (known as Lord Rayleigh) is almost entirely devoted himself to science, working in his home laboratory. Among the studies conducted by them we find the experimental and theoretical work on optical devices, . as a result of which was first defined by resolution of the diffraction grating, . and was made a fundamental analysis of the optical properties of spectrometers,
. Diffraction grating is a plate, . of which have done fine, . close to each other situated grooves, . allow separate light passing through them into its component colors, . maintaining the relationship between wavelength and distance between the grooves,
. In the spectroscope with their help we obtain a series of lines or stripes of different colors (spectral lines), whose position corresponds to a wavelength. Spectroscopy in the late 1870's became more and more important instrument in studies of sunlight and radiation of atoms and molecules.
Although C. was happy to stay in their own laboratory, he in 1879, Mr.. reluctantly accepted the offer to become professor of experimental physics (post, established in 1871) and director of the Cavendish Laboratory (opened in 1874) in connection with the death of James Clerk Maxwell, the first director of the Laboratory. Cambridge C. began to implement a program of precise redefinition of the electrical units: volts, ohm and ampere. The program was carried out with his characteristic thoroughness and patience, using fine tools, and its results by 1884, later almost did not require corrections. He also introduced the students to laboratory work in elementary physics, that was a completely new type of training for England at the time, then engulfed the universities throughout the country.
After five years of work in Cambridge with. left his post and returned to Terlingen Place, where he continued his studies until the end of life. He has always dealt with several projects simultaneously, paying attention both in the laboratory experiments and theoretical work in his office. He published works on an extremely wide range of issues, including light and sound waves, electromagnetism, the theorems of mechanics, vibration of the plastic media, capillarity and thermodynamics. It became a classic two-volume monograph "Theory of Sound '(" The Theory of Sound ") was published in 1877 ... 1878. and still remains the same direction for today's scientists and engineers.
In 1892, Mr.. S. began a series of measurements of the densities of gases in proportion to their atomic weights, which was associated with the interest which he showed to Prout's hypothesis. In 1815, Mr.. English chemist William Prout drew attention to the fact that the density of gases tend to be expressed by integral multiples of the density of hydrogen, the lightest among all gases. He has suggested that all elements are made up of building blocks of hydrogen. When P. began its work, the most accurate value of the density of oxygen at 15.96 times the density of hydrogen, which was close enough to the whole number 16 and seemed to confirm the hypothesis of Prout. S. made a more thorough measurement, corrected the errors of other experimenters, and came to the value of 15.88, which casts doubt on the validity of Prout's hypothesis.
When P. drew attention to the nitrogen, he found to his surprise, that nitrogen obtained in the decomposition of ammonia is less dense than nitrogen, taken from the air. After careful measurements, in order to avoid mistakes and doubts, he found the key to this phenomenon in an article written in 1795, Mr.. Henry Cavendish, English chemist and physicist, after whom was named laboratory. Cavendish oxidized nitrogen in the air with the help of electrical discharge and found that regardless of how long does the discharge, remained a small amount of gas that was beyond the oxidation. Hence P. concluded that the resulting nitrogen from the air is not clean and contains a small amount of another unknown gas or gases. Nitrogen, which is obtained from ammonia cleaner, because ammonia is composed of hydrogen and nitrogen, and with the formation of hydrogen selectively reacts with nitrogen rather than with impurities.
Repeating the tedious experiments Cavendish, C. nitrogen removed by oxidation using an electric discharge and slowly accumulate an unknown residual gas. Meanwhile, William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, learned about research with. and applied a more effective chemical methods to obtain the desired gas. Two scientists have coordinated their efforts and in 1895. announced that elusive gas open. Since it was chemically inert (the reason he is not oxidized with nitrogen), they called it argon, which in Greek means 'inert'. They found that the argon is about 1 percent of the total volume of the atmosphere, and its density is more than twice the density of nitrogen. They also found that dedicated their gas was pure argon, but also include other identified later by Ramsay inert gases, including neon, krypton, xenon and helium. All this group is the collective name of the noble gases because of their resistance to chemical reactions.
Within three years, lasted until the study of argon, P. published a dozen works on issues such as interference and scattering of light, telephone, sound measurements. In 1900, Mr.. he published the conclusion of the relationship between temperature and wavelength in the spectrum of a black body, based on existing physical laws. Once as an English physicist James Jeans suggested that a small modification of the output MS, he became known as the law of radiation Rayleigh-Jeans. However, this law applied only to long waves, and it preceded the publication of only a few months the message of Max Planck on a radical solution of the problem of black body and of the birth of quantum theory. Although C. closely followed the development of modern quantum physics and the theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, he was too conservative to accept them.
In 1904. S. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 'for the study of the density of the most common gases and for his discovery of argon in the course of these studies'. (Ramsay received the Nobel Prize 1904. chemistry.) Upon presentation of the winner of J. E. Sederblom, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that although new methods for extracting gas' in principle have been known ... problem was ... to get a new gas not only in its purest form, but in sufficient quantities, so that you can conduct a thorough investigation of their essential properties'. Opening of argon, said Sederblom contributed to the discovery of helium by Ramsay and other noble gases.
Being a very prolific author, with. published over 400 works for more than fifty years of its research activities. Although people who are not professionally involved in science, he is better known in connection with the discovery of argon, his work touches virtually every area of classical physics. In addition, part of his time engaged in teaching activities (several years), as well as the work of the six academic and government organizations concerned with education. He was secretary (1885 ... 1896) and president (1905 ... 1908) Royal Society of London. Among his many other responsibilities included acting president of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, . President of the British Association for Basic Sciences, . Chairman of the Committee on Explosives War Ministry and the chief controller for the supply of natural gas in London,
. Since 1908. until his death he was chancellor of Cambridge University.
In 1871, Mr.. S. married Evelyn Balfour, the sister of Arthur James Balfour, who became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1902. They had three sons, the eldest of whom, Robert, became a physicist and biographer of his father. S. continued to work virtually until his death in Terlingen Place, published about 90 papers in the past 15 years, and leaving 3 works finished but not published. He was called the last of the great British classical physicists.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, C. was awarded the Royal Medal (1882), . Copley Medal (1899) and the Rumford Medal (1914) Royal Society of London; Matteuchi gold medal of the Italian National Academy of Sciences (1895), the Faraday Medal of the British Society of Chemistry (1895); Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts (1905) and The Elliott Cresson Medal Franklinovskogo Institute ( 1914),
. He was awarded thirteen honorary degrees, and he was admitted as a member of more than 50 scientific societies.