Lyle was born and educated in Ireland before emigrating to Australia to take up a professorship at the University of Melbourne. There he was a pioneer in the use of X-rays as a medical tool. The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded in his name to honour Australian achievements in Physics and Mathematics.
In his earlier years in Ireland he was a rugby union forward of some note, who played club rugby for Dublin University and international rugby for Ireland.[4]
Career
Lyle was born in Coleraine, Ireland in 1860, the second son of Hugh Lyle, a well-to-do landowner.[5] He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating in 1883 with full honours and student medals for his work in mathematics and physics. He received his MA in 1887, and continued his studies in advanced physics and mathematics. By 1889 he had emigrated to Australia, and at the age of 29, took up the position of the chair of natural philosophy at the University of Melbourne.[2] In 1891 a Master of Science was introduced at the university, and Lyle used the opportunity to set up a small research program.
In 1892 Lyle married Frances Isobel Clare Millear, the daughter of a prominent Western District grazier, and the two set up home in a professorial house provided by the university.[5] They had four children, Mary, Nancy, Thomas, and Clare. Their first child, Mary Ranken Lyle (born in 1894), became a notable physician, and married Edmund Herring in 1922.[5]
In February 1896, news reached the scientific community in Australia of Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of a new type of electromagnetic radiation. Lyle was one of several scientists within Australia to attempt to recreate Röntgen's experiments. As the equipment did not exist in the university, Lyle was forced to create it himself. He was an expert glassblower, and was able to make and excavate his own Crookes tube to produce practical X-rays.[2]
Lyle is credited with taking and publishing one of the first X-ray photos in Australia, independently of contemporary fellow pioneers Father Joseph Patrick Slattery and Walter Drowley Filmer, namely a picture of the foot of a Professor Masson,[5] which was reproduced in newspapers the next day.[6][2][7][8] In June 1896 he was invited to take a photo of a patient who had a needle embedded in their hand. The resulting 'shadow photograph', as the images were then known, allowed doctors to remove the needle with a single incision.[2]
In 1901 Lyle and his family moved into a 20-room blue-stone mansion in Irvine Road, Toorak. Lyle and his wife's wealth was such that they were able to hire a staff of eight to look after the household and the family cow.[5] He had joined the board of visitors of the Melbourne Observatory in 1899, and from 1903 until his death he served as chairman. He represented the university on the Victorian Rhodes scholarship selection committee from 1904 until his retirement.[3]
Although Lyle made early advances in X-rays, his field of expertise was in electrical power technology, especially in the areas of magnetic fields and alternating currents. He published many papers, most of which were also published in London. His scientific achievements were acknowledged in 1905 with the award of Sc.D. from Trinity College, Dublin, and again in 1912 with Fellowship of the Royal Society.[1][3]
Retirement
In 1914, with Ranken family inheritances, his wife's money, and wise financial investments, he was able to announce his retirement from the university. By this time, sporting injuries from his time playing rugby in Ireland had left him requiring crutches.
Lyle was a member of varying government bodies and inquiries, and held a directorship of the Metropolitan Gas Company. During the First World War he was a science advisor for the Naval Board,[9] a member of the Federal Munitions Committee,[10] and president of the Industries Exemption Advisory Committee.[3] He was also one of the first three commissioners of Victoria's State Electricity Commission and was later made the organisation's first chairman. In 1919 he became a foundation member of the Australian National Research Council (ANRC), (the forerunner of the Australian Academy of Science),[2] and served as its president in 1929–1932. He was knighted in 1922. "His outstanding contribution to the nation's scientific life was recognized by the ANRC when in 1931 it created the Thomas Ranken Lyle medal for distinguished Australian research in mathematics and physics."[3]
He was very active with a wide range of positions in a wide range of public and private organisation until 1940, when a cerebral haemorrhage left him semi-invalid. His health deteriorated, and he died at South Yarra on 31 March 1944, survived by his wife, son and three daughters.[2]
On 7 September 1995, Lyle was one of seven scientists to be honoured with his image appearing on an Australian postage stamp. Lyle appeared on a 45-cent stamp, along with fellow pioneers of X-ray research Father Joseph Patrick Slattery and Walter Drowley Filmer.[12]
Honours and awards
Fellow of the Royal Society
Knight Bachelor
Sc.D., Trinity College, Dublin
Rugby career
While a student at Dublin University, Lyle played rugby union for the university team. He was impressive enough at university level to bring himself to the notice of the Irish selectors, and was capped for his first international match in the 1885 Home Nations Championship. Lyle played in both Irish games of the 1885 tournament, away loses to England and Scotland. The Scotland game was originally played in Ireland, but weather conditions forced the match to be abandoned after 20 minutes.[13] Lyle played in both the original game and the replay, which sometimes incorrectly causes Lyle to be credited with six international caps. Despite a poor record the previous season, Lyle was reselected for the 1886 tournament, playing in a single game, a one-try loss to England.[citation needed]
He was captain of the Ireland team for a season and was leader of the forwards the year Ireland won the Triple Crown.[14]
His final group of internationals were for the 1887 Home Nations Championship. Lyle was selected for the encounters with England and Scotland, which included his only winning international game when Ireland defeated England by two goals to nil. Lyle had one final role during the 1887 campaign when he was selected to referee the encounter between England and Scotland. His rugby career ended not much later when he suffered a knee injury which affected his health for the rest of his life.[2]
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 inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. In honour of Röntgen's accomplishments, in 2004 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named element 111, roentgenium, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him. The unit of measurement roentgen was also named after him.
Sir William Henry Bragg was an English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son Lawrence Bragg – the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics: "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays". The mineral Braggite is named after him and his son. He was knighted in 1920.
Charles Glover Barkla FRS FRSE was a British physicist, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1917 for his work in X-ray spectroscopy and related areas in the study of X-rays.
The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Society and operates under a Royal charter; as such, it is an independent body, but it has government endorsement. The Academy Secretariat is in Canberra, at the Shine Dome.
Keith Edward Bullen FAA FRS was a New Zealand-born mathematician and geophysicist. He is noted for his seismological interpretation of the deep structure of the Earth's mantle and core. He was Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney in Australia from 1945 until 1971.
David Forbes Martyn FAA FRS was a Scottish-born Australian physicist and radiographer.
Ian Hugh Sloan AO is an Australian applied mathematician.
Professor Ernest Oliver (Ernie) Tuck was an Australian applied mathematician, notable for his sustained work in ship hydrodynamics, and for Tuck's incompressibility function.
Edward James HannanFAA FASSA was an Australian statistician who is the co-discoverer of the Hannan–Quinn information criterion. He studied at the University of Melbourne and completed a PhD at the Australian National University under the supervision of Patrick A. P. Moran.
The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded at most every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to a mathematician or physicist for his or her outstanding research accomplishments. It is named after Thomas Ranken Lyle, an Irish mathematical physicist who became a professor at the University of Melbourne. The award takes the form of a bronze medal bearing the design of the head of Thomas Lyle, as sculpted by Rayner Hoff.
William Henry HoskingLM, LSA, LRCPI, LRCP, MRCS was a New Zealand medical doctor, hospital superintendent, X-ray and radium pioneer.
Ranken is a name of Scottish and Irish origin. The name is cognate with the surname Rankin which is derived from the medieval personal name Rankin, a diminutive of Ronald or Rand, combined with the diminutive suffix kin. It may refer to:
Bernard Yarnton Mills AC, FRS, FAA, DSc(Eng) was an Australian engineer and a pioneer of radio astronomy in Australia, responsible for the design and implementation of the Mills Cross Telescope and the Molonglo Cross Telescope.
John Conrad Jaeger, FRS was an Australian mathematical physicist.
Joseph Patrick Slattery, CM was an Irish-born physicist, radiologist, Catholic priest, pioneer in the field of radiography in Australia and credited with the first use of fluoroscopy in Australia.
Walter Drowley Filmer was an early pioneer of X-rays in Australia, a wireless engineer, for a time ran the British Royal Train, and a world class entomologist that discovered several new species in his homeland. Filmer was a naturalist and established a private collection at his residence that thousands of people visited.
William John Hancock D.Sc. (Hon), MIEE, MICE, LRCP was an Australian of Irish descent, an electrical engineer, telephone pioneer and pioneer in X-rays in the colony of Western Australia. He was honorary radiologist for Perth Hospital and Base Hospital in Fremantle. His list of credentials and accomplishments include M.I.E.E., Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, M.I.C.E., Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, L.R.C.P., Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and D.Sc. (Honorary).
Samuel Barbour was an Australian chemist, photographer and X-ray pioneer in the colony of South Australia. In Australia, the medical men of the day took a slow approach in the adoption of the new science that involved X-rays. Many of the early demonstrations were made by investigators outside the medical field. Upon examination of the initial investigators, several key factors were common. The individuals had already either been experimenting along similar lines to Wilhelm Röntgen with Crookes tubes and such, the physicists or scientists, or were actively associated with electrical work, the electricians, which made them particularly receptive to the technical appeal of the new science of X-rays. Records of the events reveal that among the medical men who witnessed the first images produced as radiographs, a rather small number had any great desire to employ X-rays directly in their own medical practice.
John Raymond Wilton, invariably referred to as J. R. Wilton, was an Australian-born mathematician. In the period of 1926–1934 Wilton published 26 research papers on analysis and number theory. For which he gained the Doctorate in science from the University of Cambridge in 1930 and in 1935 he was the first person to receive the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal from the Australian National Research Council.
Derek William Robinson was a British-Australian theoretical mathematician and physicist. He was a researcher at the Australian National University.
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