Charles Sumner Slichter (April 16, 1864 – October 4, 1946) was an applied mathematician and dean of the graduate school at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. His most notable scholarly contribution focused on

hydrogeology Hydrogeology (''hydro-'' meaning water, and ''-geology'' meaning the study of the Earth) is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rocks of the Earth's crust (commonly in aquif ...

, where he developed a method of quantifying the velocity of ground-water underflow in river valleys. This method employed ammonium chloride that would be placed in an upstream, i.e., the upgradient, well and detected in three observation wells a short distance away, i.e., the downgradient."Early Stage of Hydrogeology in the United States" (excerpt from 200 years of Hydrogeology in the U.S.) Garald G. Parker Sr. ''Ground Water'' 26(2): 234–235, 1988

Family

Slichter was the husband of Mary Byrne Slichter and was the father of economist

Sumner Slichter Sumner Huber Slichter (January 8, 1892 – September 27, 1959) was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Slichter was considered by many to be the pre-eminent labor economist of the 1940s and 195 ...

, geophysicist Louis B. Slichter, industrialist Allen Slichter, and businessman Donald Slichter, the grandfather of physicist

Charles Pence Slichter Charles Pence Slichter (January 21, 1924 – February 19, 2018) was an American physicist, best known for his work on nuclear magnetic resonance and superconductivity. He was awarded the 2007 National Medal of Science "for establishing nuclear m ...

, and the great-grandfather of musician

Jacob Slichter Jacob Slichter (born Jacob Huber Slichter, April 5, 1961) is an American musician. He is best known for being the drummer for the rock band Semisonic. Early life Slichter, the son of physicist Charles Slichter, was born in Boston, Massachu ...

Books

*''Galileo, 1642-1942: an essay commemorating the tercentenary of Galileo: read before a joint meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of Sigma Xi and the Dept. of Mathematics on November 17, 1942 ''
''Science in a Tavern: Essays and Diversions on Science in the Making''

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 1938 *''Four-place logarithmic tables for rapid computation'' arranged by Charles S. Slichter, New York: Macmillan & Co. (1906) *''The tidal and other problems'' (1909) *''Elementary mathematical analysis, a text book for first year college students'' (1914) *''Observations on the ground waters of Rio Grande Valley'' (1905) *''Field measurements of the rate of movement of underground waters'' (1905) *''The motions of underground waters'' (1902) *''The underflow in Arkansas Valley in western Kansas'' (1906) *''The underflow of the South Platte valley'' (1906) *''Theoretical investigation of the motion of ground waters'' (1899)

References

External links

* Hydrogeologists 1864 births 1946 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Cornell University alumni Northwestern University alumni People from Saint Paul, Minnesota {{US-geologist-stub