Henry Andrews Bumstead (March 12, 1870 – December 31, 1920) was an American
physicist who taught at
Yale from 1897 to 1920. In 1918 he was scientific attache to the United States embassy in London. In 1920 he was Chairman of the
National Research Council.
Education
Henry was a
high school student in
Decatur, Illinois
Decatur ( ) is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois, with a population of 70,522 as of the 2020 Census. The city was founded in 1829 and is situated along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Ce ...
. In 1887 he went to
Johns Hopkins University, initially as a student in a pre-medical program. He studied
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
with
Fabian Franklin
Fabian Franklin (1853–1939) was a Hungarian-born American engineer, mathematician and journalist, husband of Christine Ladd-Franklin.
Life and work
The Franklin family (his parents were born in Poland) migrated from Hungary to Philadelphia ...
and took up an interest in that subject. He studied
physics with
Henry Augustus Rowland and found his calling there. In 1891 he obtained the
bachelor's degree and continued at Johns Hopkins as an assistant in the physics laboratory and a
graduate student. He studied thermodynamics, electrostatics, and the electromagnetic theory of light.
Career
Henry Bumstead became an instructor at the Sheffield Scientific School of
Yale University in 1893, working with
Charles S. Hastings
Charles Sheldon Hastings (November 27, 1848 – January 31, 1932) was an American physicist known for his work in optics. His father was Panet Marshall Hastings and his mother was Jane Sheldon Hastings. The father was a physician and anatomy tea ...
. At the same time he became a student of
Willard Gibbs, learning
vector analysis and continuing the study of thermodynamics and the electromagnetic theory of light. He was awarded the Ph.D. in 1897, composing a thesis ''A Comparison of Electrodynamic Theories''. Bumstead became an
assistant professor in 1900.
In 1905 Bumstead spent a sabbatical year 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 named ...
. Performing an experiment suggested by
J. J. Thomson, Bumstead examined the effect of
X-rays (then called
Röntgen rays) when applied to
lead and
zinc, finding that "twice as much heat is produced in lead compared to zinc".
When
Arthur Williams Wright
Arthur Williams Wright (September 8, 1836 – December 19, 1915) was an American physicist. Wright spent most of his scientific career at Yale University, where he received the first science Ph.D. awarded outside of Europe. His research, which ra ...
retired in 1906, Bumstead became
professor of physics at Yale College and Director of the Sloan Physics Laboratory.
In
World War I Bumstead was selected to serve as the head of the Scientific Section in London under Admiral
William Sims, Commander of the American Forces countering the U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic:
:The American headquarters in London comprised many separate departments, each one of which was responsible to me as the Force Commander, through the Chief of Staff, they included such indispensable branches as...the Scientific Section, Professor H. A. Bumstead, Ph.D.
In 1920 Bumstead was elected Chairman of the
National Research Council. He was a member of the
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Personal life
In 1896 Bumstead married Luetta Ullrich, daughter of John Ullrich, a banker of Decatur, Illinois. The couple had two children, John Henry (born 1897) and Eleanor (born 1902). John Henry became a
medical doctor
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
in 1923, after study at Johns Hopkins University. He later joined Yale Medical School. Eleanor married
William E. Stevenson
William Erskine Stevenson (March 18, 1820November 29, 1883) was an American cabinet-maker, farmer, and Republican politician from Parkersburg, West Virginia. He was the third governor of West Virginia from 1869 until 1871.http://www.wvculture.or ...
, a President of
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...
(1946–59).
Eleanor Bumstead Stevenson archives
from Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...
See also
* Leigh Page
Leigh Page (October 13, 1884 – September 14, 1952) was an American theoretical physicist. Chairman of Mathematical Physics at the Sloane Physics Laboratory of Yale University for over three decades, he is the namesake of Yale's Leigh Page ...
* Harry Nyquist
Notes
External links
*
* Leigh Page
Leigh Page (October 13, 1884 – September 14, 1952) was an American theoretical physicist. Chairman of Mathematical Physics at the Sloane Physics Laboratory of Yale University for over three decades, he is the namesake of Yale's Leigh Page ...
(1921
National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
* Robert Andrews Millikan
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric e ...
(1921
Henry Bumstead
Science #1361 (v 53, pp 84,5), link from Jstor
JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
Early Content.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bumstead, Henry A.
1870 births
1920 deaths
Yale University alumni
Johns Hopkins University alumni
American physicists
Sheffield Scientific School faculty
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
People from Pekin, Illinois
Presidents of the American Physical Society