Biographical Memoirs Volume 61 (1992) / Chapter Skim
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Karl Taylor Compton
Karl Taylor Compton
Pages 38-57
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From page 39... ...
He was a man of principle whose transparently honest goals moved men, a warm friend who inspirer! loyalty, and a mentor who engendered pride in achievement.
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Elias Compton married Otelia Augspurger in ISS6, and the pair prover! to be remarkable parents of a remarkable family.
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gang" and `'the finesse to be acquired in pitching a shovelful of dirt onto a wagon." From the men he came to know who dug glitches, laid bricks, worked on farms, and whose `'goo(1 qualities and special abilities" he anoreciated he learned '`the joy of working with your hands." << ~ - ~7 Beginning in lS97, Karl's summer vacations were spent camping out at Lake Otsego in Michigan with friends and students from the college joining the family party. There he developed a lasting appreciation for the outdoor life, fishing, canoeing, hiking, hunting.
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From page 42... ...
At that time he was doing odd jobs in the biology laboratory, and looked forward to an assistantship for the following year. Funds did not become available, however, and he accepted an appointment in the Physics Department as an assistant in charge of arranging equipment and setting up laboratory experiments.
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an offer to heacI the science department of a missionary college in Korea exactly the kind of life work Elias hoped his eldest son wouIct choose to follow. But misgivings about his readiness for such a responsibility were reinforced by his father, who counseled that the best preparation for a teaching career wouIcl be further graduate work at a great university with superb library and laboratory facilities.
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From page 44... ...
They took up residence on the Reed campus, and so began his active professional life. At Reed, Compton's title was instructor, yet he was solely responsible for the instruction in physics and worked hard to build up the department and its laboratory facilities.
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He was soon recognized as the most distinguished member of the Palmer Laboratory, and graduate students came in increasing numbers to work uncler his direction. Broaclly, his field incluclec3 electronics and spectroscopy, his research ranging over such subjects as the passage of photoelectrons through metals, ionization and the motion of electrons in gases, the phenomena of fluorescence, the theory of the electric arc, absorption and emission spectra in mercury vapor, and collisions of electrons and atoms.
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in 1927 he was named director of research at the Palmer Laboratory and appointed to the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professorship. This new chair enabled him to concentrate on graduate work in the department, of which he was named chairman in 1929.
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N ew vacates tor chemistry were Greatly in the planning stage, clistinguishect physicists from abroad tract been invited to spencl short periods in Cambridge, and younger members of the faculty were returning from graduate work in Europe. But progress was frustratingly sIow.
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During his years as president, student amenities on campus were greatly improved, and (as one might have imagined the athletic program receiver! his wholehearted support.
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particularly scientific and technical education, should be broacily based anct responsive to the needs of the times, en cl that science should be put to work and could contribute significantly to industrial progress. Despite his seemingly total immersion in teaching and research, Karl Compton from the very outset of his career took an active and constructive part in many of the affairs of the larger scientific community.
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From page 50... ...
He was a fellow of the Optical Society of America and a member of the American Chemical Society, the Franklin Institute, and several professional engineering societies. WORLD WAR II: COOPERATION WITH THE MILITARY In 1933 President Roosevelt asked Karl Compton to chair a new Scientific Advisory Board.
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From page 51... ...
President Truman appointed Compton to a committee on the atomic bomb test, and he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Evaluation Board for such tests. In 1946 he became chairman of the Presiclent's Advisory Commission on Military Training and from 1946 to 1948 was a member of the Naval Research Advisory Committee.
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· 77 . ' _ A_ The Washington Award of the Western Society of Engineers came in lL947, the I,amme Meclal of the American Society for Engineering Education in 1949, and in 1950, the Hoover Meclal a joint award of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Institute of Mining anti Metallurgical Engineers, and American Society of Civil Engineers.
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To grasp the full range and (1epth of Compton's character, one must recognize how it molcled the thinking and actions of those who shared his intellectual environment. A brilliant experimental physicist, an inspiring teacher, a great academic leacler, a conscientious public servant, he was beyond all these a wise and clecticatec!
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NOTE 1. Today known as the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Academy's highest honor, and the only award presented on behalf of the entire Academy membership.
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30:16179. 55 1912 The influence of the contact difference of potential between the plates emitting and receiving electrons liberated by ultra-violet light on the measurement of the velocities of these electrons.
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Extreme ultraviolet spectra excited by controlled electron impacts.
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From page 57... ...
A broad range vacuum spectrograph for the extreme ultraviolet.
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