He was the most famous physicist in Britain from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century. He made great contributions to both experimental physics and theoretical physics. Although his main contribution was in classical physics, he made great comments on modern physics, such as quantum theory and relativity, in his later years. Therefore, we can say that Lord Raleigh is a great scientist.
He was born in Essex near London on June 1842+065438+ 10/2, 2002. From 1865, when he graduated from Cambridge University, to his death on June 30, 2009, he wrote more than 430 scientific papers in more than 50 years of scientific activities, which were later integrated into six volumes and still have reference value. He also wrote a magnum opus "Acoustics Theory" in two volumes, which became an immortal masterpiece in the history of physics. Although Rowley is not a mathematician, he is good at solving important problems in physics with mathematics. At the same time, he is very careful about the experimental work, so he has achieved rich experimental research results in his life.
After graduating from Cambridge University, he was 26 years old. According to the custom at that time, he traveled to the European continent and then went to the United States for an inspection. 1868, he bought some experimental equipment and brought it back, and set up a private laboratory, which became a famous physics laboratory in Britain at that time.
187 1 married at the age of 29. After marriage, he went to Egypt and began to write his book Acoustic Theory. This book was written for six years, and it was not published for the first time until 1877.
1873 and 3 1 years old, they inherited their father's title. Since then, he has been conducting experimental research on acoustics and optics in his home laboratory, making him the most famous acoustics expert in the world at that time.
He also cited optical theory to explain why the sky is blue. In 187 1, he proposed that the intensity of scattered light is related to the direction of scattering and inversely proportional to the fourth power of wavelength. This is the optically famous Rayleigh scattering formula.
Among the seven visible lights that make up sunlight, red light has the longest wavelength and blue light has the shorter wavelength. The scattering ability of tiny dust particles in the air to blue light is more than ten times stronger than that of red light. The cloudless sky is blue because the blue light in the sun is strongly scattered.
He studied the grating of optical instruments in his own laboratory and greatly improved the spectrometer invented by his predecessors. Since 1870, spectrometer has become an important instrument to study the spectra of sunlight and many chemical elements.
In the late 1970s, Rowley wanted to do research at home all his life. However, J.C. Maxwell, an outstanding professor of physics at Cambridge University, died in 1879, and Rowley, 37, was hired as a professor at Cambridge University.
He did a very important job at Cambridge University, which forced students of basic physics to do experiments. Since then, it has been widely implemented in universities in Europe and America. Later, because he didn't want to do much foreign affairs, he stopped being a professor at Cambridge University until he was 42 years old in 1884.
When he was in Cambridge University, he did very important research work with precise instruments, that is, he carefully studied and calculated the accurate values of three basic units of electricity: ohm, ampere and volt. His research results have become the basis for long-term use in physics. Because he felt the importance of the accuracy of basic units, he suggested that the British government set up a national physics laboratory. Our laboratory was established in 1900 and is still an important international standardization organization.
1884, British scientists elected Raleigh as the chairman of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This year, this promotion association went to Canada to hold its annual meeting. This gives Rowley another chance to establish closer friendship with some physicists in the United States and Canada.
After he returned to England, he was still engaged in experimental research in his own home. Although he also served as a professor at the Royal College of London from 1887 to 1905, he only has a little time to stay in London every year and give a few short and capable speeches.
From the late period of 1880, he spent most of his time working in the laboratory, and it was very extensive, including optics, fluid mechanics, acoustics, electricity and thermodynamics. Therefore, his position in the scientific community is very high.
He was very serious and responsible for studying the figures, which led him to cooperate with william ramsey to discover argon. This was originally a chemical problem, so he cooperated with chemists to completely solve the problem that this rare gas exists in the air. The density of nitrogen obtained by Raleigh from air is not exactly the same as that obtained from ammonia, although the difference is only in the third place after the decimal point.
Gas density is 1L gas mass, calculated in grams. The volume of gas will change with the change of temperature and pressure, so it must be stipulated that the density of gas is zero degrees Celsius and the mass per liter at one atmosphere.
After many measurements, the density of nitrogen in the air is still per liter1.2572 g. The density of nitrogen decomposed from ammonia compounds is1.2508 g/L. At that time, he was advised to look for his previous works first. Rowley reread cavendish's manuscript on 1795. Cavendish once used electrostatic discharge to remove nitrogen oxides, and found that although the discharge time was very long, it always left a little unbound gas. After reading this report, Rowley thinks that there must be another gas in the air besides oxygen and nitrogen.
The density of oxygen produced by three different ways of thunder is completely equal, but the research results of nitrogen are puzzling. The nitrogen he made from ammonia is always about five thousandths lighter than the nitrogen he got after removing oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor from the atmosphere. So he published this fact in the British magazine Nature on September 29th, 1892, asking readers to explain it, but he didn't receive any reply.
Lord Raleigh himself initially thought of four possible explanations: (1) nitrogen produced from the atmosphere, or containing trace amounts of oxygen; (2) Nitrogen made from ammonia may be slightly mixed with hydrogen; (3) Nitrogen obtained from the atmosphere may contain N3 molecules similar to ozone; (4) Nitrogen molecules obtained from ammonia may have decomposed, thus reducing the density of gas.
The first hypothesis is the most impossible, because the density difference between oxygen and nitrogen is very small, and a large amount of oxygen must be mixed to explain the difference of five thousandths. Rowley also proved through experiments that nitrogen made of ammonia never contains hydrogen, and the third explanation is unbelievable, because he used silent discharge to make it pass through this gas, and did not find that the density of nitrogen increased.
Rowley initially used induction coils to remove nitrogen oxides, but the work was rather slow. Therefore, william ramsey suggested to Rowley that instead of using electric discharge, chemical methods should be used. Because Ramsey's method was successful, the two of them wrote a paper together in 1895 and read it out at the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Because they had not named this new gas at that time, the chairman of the conference suggested calling it Argon, which comes from the Greek meaning of "laziness" and transliterates as argon in Chinese.
Because Rowley was knowledgeable and had many contacts with other scientists, he began to feel that many experiments in physics in the late19th century were difficult to explain with classical theories, such as spectra. Although he has problems with classical physics, he has never given up hope and always tries to explain new phenomena with classical physics.
He is not very enthusiastic about quantum theory and thinks it is too sudden. Because they discovered Rayleigh-Jenkins law together, which was published several months earlier than Planck's famous theory, he paid less attention to quantum science.
He also wants to explain the atomic spectrum with classical theory. Such as the emission spectrum of hydrogen atoms, he finally had to admit that his attempt was a failure. When Bohr put forward a theory to explain the spectrum of hydrogen atoms, he thought it was too radical.
Although Rowley was quite convinced of the theory of relativity, he also advocated the theory of ether. Although this theory was proved by Michelson's experiment in 188 1, ether does not exist. Rowley also expressed doubts about Michael Sun's experiment. He thought that if the ether didn't exist, it would be difficult to explain many phenomena. It can be seen that he has always been loyal to the classical optical theory. He himself tried to prove the existence of ether through experiments in 190 1 year, but he also failed. From then on, he admired the correctness of relativity.
Rowley never gave up his physical experiment in his later years. In the last fifteen years, he has published as many as ninety papers. There is a paper on sound wave theory, which greatly improves the previous work.
His book Acoustics Theory, after many revisions, reached a high level in the 20th century.
In addition to his keen interest in theoretical scientific research, he has also done a lot of work on scientific issues raised by scientific organizations and governments. He devoted himself to science in the laboratory and library.
Rowley was elected to the Royal Society in 1873, and served as the secretary of the Royal Society from 1885 to 1896. He attaches great importance to promoting young scientists in society. For example, a young scholar in Scotland put forward a very important opinion on the molecular theory of gas, but it was ignored by many people. Rowley re-examined the buried papers, attached great importance to the Scottish scientist, and especially sent the papers despised by others to the journals of the Royal Society for publication.
1905, Rowley was elected president of the royal society, and he was in charge of this matter until 1908. He has done a lot of neglected work for the society.
1896, he served as the scientific consultant of Trinity College, where Rowley has been a volunteer for fifteen years. Here, he solved the problem of being blocked by dense fog with optical theory. Rowley has also made many contributions to other public utilities. For example, he served as the head of an important team of the Ministry of National Defense and served as a consultant for the improvement of the London Gas Company.
Although he has not been a university professor for a long time, he has served as the director of many educational institutions in China. 1908 to 19 19, and served as honorary president of Cambridge university.
When he accepted the Nobel Prize in Physics on 1904, he donated all the prize money to Cambridge University. He has won many honorary degrees in his life, including thirteen times; He has won the title of more than 50 honorary members in societies all over the world.
Unlike other European physicists at that time, Raleigh was not keen on putting forward new theories. He just tried to solve the scientific problems he met through physical experiments. From his life's actions, we can see that he is not only an accomplished physicist, but also a very amiable scholar.