Eli Franklin Burton, (February 14, 1879 – July 6, 1948) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

. Burton was born in Green River, township of

Pickering, Ontario Pickering ( 2021 population 99,186) is a city located in Southern Ontario, Canada, immediately east of Toronto in Durham Region. Beginning in the 1770s, the area was settled by primarily ethnic British colonists. An increase in population occur ...

, Canada. He graduated from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in 1901. From 1904 to 1906 he studied

colloid A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others exten ...

s with

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. In 1897, Thomson showed that ...

at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is name ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, writing an important monograph on the subject in 1938. He also wrote a college textbook on physics. He had become the head of the University of Toronto Physics Department in 1932. Burton developed the first practical

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a h ...

at the University of Toronto in the late 1930s with the help of university students Cecil Hall,

James Hillier James Hillier, (August 22, 1915 – January 15, 2007) was a Canadian- American scientist and inventor who designed and built, with Albert Prebus, the first successful high-resolution electron microscope in North America in 1938. Biography ...

, and Albert Prebus.MIT biography of Hillier
/ref> He was made a fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

and received the

Henry Marshall Tory Medal The Henry Marshall Tory Medal is an award of the Royal Society of Canada "for outstanding research in a branch of astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, physics, or an allied science". It is named in honour of Henry Marshall Tory Henry Marshall Tory ...

in 1947. He was a member of the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

and worked on

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, ...

research and training during World War II. Burton died in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anc ...

in 1948. There is now an award given in his name by the Electron Microscopy Society of America (https://web.archive.org/web/20110319105103/http://www.microscopy.org/awards/past.cfm#burton).

References

Biography
from the Royal Society of Canada on the award of the Henry Marshall Tory Medal, (accessed 2005-12-21).

External links

Eli Franklin Burton
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage. Available f ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burton, Eli Franklin 1879 births 1948 deaths Canadian physicists Canadian inventors University of Toronto alumni University of Toronto faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the American Physical Society