Rayleigh

John William Strutt Lord Rayleigh

Born: 12 Nov 1842 in Langford Grove (near Maldon), Essex, England
Died: 30 June 1919 in Terling Place, Witham, Essex, England

Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page
John William Strutt suffered from poor health and his schooling at Eton and Harrow was disrupted and for four years he had a private tutor. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1861, graduating in 1864.

His first paper in 1865 was on Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. He worked on propogation of sound and, while on an excursion to Egypt taken for health reasons, Strutt wrote Treatise on Sound (1870-1). In 1879 he wrote a paper on travelling waves, this theory has now developed into the theory of solitons. His theory of scattering (1871) was the first correct explanation of why the sky is blue.

In 1873 he succeeded to the title of Baron Rayleigh. From 1879 to 84 he was the second Cavendish professor of experimental physics at Cambridge succeeding Maxwell. Then in 1884 he became secretary of the Royal Society. Rayleigh discovered the inert gas argon in 1895, work which earned him a Nobel Prize, in 1904.

He was awarded the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1890 and was president of the Royal Society between 1905 and 1908. He became chancellor of Cambridge University in 1908.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. R B Lindsay, Lord Rayleigh, the Man and His Works (Oxford-London, 1970).
  4. R J Strutt, Life of John William Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh (augmented ed., 1968).
  5. A T Humphrey, Lord Rayleigh, the last of the great Victorian polymaths, GEC review 7 (1992), 167-179. 
Previous (Chronologically) Next     Biographies Index

Previous ( Alphabetically) Next          Welcome page

History Topics Index              Famous curves index

Chronologies                           Birthplace Map

Mathematicians of the day  Anniversaries for the year

Search Form   Simple Search Form   Search Suggestions
JOC/EFR February 1996