[[Johns Hopkins University]]"},"doctoral_advisor":{"wt":""},"academic_advisors":{"wt":""},"doctoral_students":{"wt":""},"notable_students":{"wt":""},"known_for":{"wt":""},"awards":{"wt":"[[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (1952)"},"religion":{"wt":""},"signature":{"wt":""},"footnotes":{"wt":""}},"i":0}}]}" id="mwBA">.mw-parser-output .infobox-subbox{padding:0;border:none;margin:-3px;width:auto;min-width:100%;font-size:100%;clear:none;float:none;background-color:transparent}.mw-parser-output .infobox-3cols-child{margin:auto}.mw-parser-output .infobox .navbar{font-size:100%}@media screen{html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .infobox-full-data:not(.notheme)>div:not(.notheme)[style]{background:#1f1f23!important;color:#f8f9fa}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .infobox-full-data:not(.notheme) div:not(.notheme){background:#1f1f23!important;color:#f8f9fa}}@media(min-width:640px){body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table{display:table!important}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table>caption{display:table-caption!important}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table>tbody{display:table-row-group}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table tr{display:table-row!important}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table th,body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .infobox-table td{padding-left:inherit;padding-right:inherit}}
Bruce H. Billings | |
---|---|
Born | July 6, 1915 |
Died | October 21, 1992 77) | (aged
Alma mater | Harvard University Johns Hopkins University |
Awards | American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1952) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Bruce Hadley Billings (July 6, 1915 – October 21, 1992 [1] ) was an American physicist. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1971. [2] and the Polaroid Corporation's chief physicist between 1941 and 1947. [3]
Billings was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy. He received his bachelor's degree in 1936 and his master's degree in 1937, both from Harvard University. [4] Billings obtained his Ph.D. in 1941 from Johns Hopkins University. [3] He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1952. [5]
In the 1950s and 1960s Billings was senior vice president for research at Baird-Atomic, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he contributed to the development of analytical instrumentation for emission spectroscopy, dual-beam, recording infra-red absorption spectrometry, flame photometry, and investigated the potential of circular dichroism as the basis for instrumentation, a technology that Baird-Atomic, Inc. never commercialized.
Billings died in Long Beach, California, aged 77 from pancreatic cancer. [4]
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical system of in-camera instant photography, and the retinex theory of color vision, among other things. His Polaroid instant camera went on sale in late 1948 and made it possible for a picture to be taken and developed in 60 seconds or less.
Alfred Kastler was a German-born French physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics. He is known for the development of optical pumping.
Arthur Leonard Schawlow was an American physicist who, along with Charles Townes, developed the theoretical basis for laser science. His central insight was the use of two mirrors as the resonant cavity to take maser action from microwaves to visible wavelengths. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen and Kai Siegbahn for his work using lasers to determine atomic energy levels with great precision.
Walter Lewis Hyde (1919–2003) was an American physicist, an early contributor to the field of fiber optics. He held patents for devices used in ophthalmology, as well as a panoramic rear-view mirror for automobiles.
Earl Ward Plummer was an American physicist. His main contributions were in surface physics of metals. Plummer was a professor of physics at Louisiana State University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Tennessee - Knoxville.
Merle Anthony Tuve was an American geophysicist who was the Chairman of the Office of Scientific Research and Development's Section T, which was created in August 1940. He was founding director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the main laboratory of Section T during the war from 1942 onward. He was a pioneer in the use of pulsed radio waves whose discoveries opened the way to the development of radar and nuclear energy.
Floyd Karker Richtmyer was a physicist and educator in the United States.
Joseph Wilfred Goodman is an American electrical engineer and physicist.
Kenneth MacClure Baird was a Canadian physicist, metrologist and inventor, born of Canadian parents in China in 1923.
John Donovan Strong (1905-1992) was an American physicist and astronomer. One of the world's foremost optical scientists of his day, Strong was known for being the first to detect water vapor in the atmosphere of Venus and for developing a number of innovations in optical devices, ranging from improved telescope mirrors to anti-reflective coatings for optical elements and diffraction gratings.
Ralph Alanson Sawyer was an American physicist and a leader in American science.
George Russell Harrison was an American physicist.
Archie Garfield Worthing was an American physicist. Starting in 1925 he served as head of the physics department at the University of Pittsburgh, and was president of the Optical Society of America during 1941–42.
Roswell Clifton Gibbs was Chairman of the Department of Physics at Cornell University from 1934 to 1946. A graduate of Cornell, he became an assistant professor of Physics there in 1912, and a professor in 1918. His research primarily concerned spectroscopy, and he was the author or co-author of over forty research papers. As Chairman of the Department of Physics, he hired distinguished physicists including Stanley Livingston, Robert Bacher and Hans Bethe, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work at Cornell. After World War II, Gibbs was Chairman of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division of the National Research Council.
William Happer is an American physicist who has specialized in the study of atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy. He is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Princeton University, and a long-term member of the JASON advisory group, where he pioneered the development of adaptive optics. From 1991 to 1993, Happer served as director of the Department of Energy's Office of Science as part of the George H.W. Bush administration. He was dismissed from the Department of Energy in 1993 by the Clinton Administration after disagreements on the ozone hole.
David Jeffery Wineland is an American physicist at the Physical Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). His most notable contributions include the laser cooling of trapped ions and the use of ions for quantum-computing operations. He received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Serge Haroche, for "ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."
Henry Crew was an American physicist and astronomer.
Laura H. Greene is the Marie Krafft Professor of Physics at Florida State University and chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. She was previously a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In September 2021, she was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Jun Ye is a Chinese-American physicist at JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the University of Colorado Boulder, working primarily in the field of atomic, molecular, and optical physics.
George Spencer Monk was an American physicist. He was an expert in optics for different types of electromagnetic radiation who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapon. He later worked for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC).