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 Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

for over three decades, he is the namesake of Yale's Leigh Page Prize Lectures.

Biography

Page was born October 13, 1884, in South Orange, New Jersey to Edward Day Page and Cornelia Lee. He came to the Sheffield Scientific School at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1909 as an assistant professor in drawing and graduate student under

Henry Andrews Bumstead 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 Resea ...

. He switched to physics in 1912, was appointed assistant professor of physics in 1916. He published a survey of "A Century's Progress in Physics" in 1918, and became professor of

mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The '' Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the developme ...

in 1922, where he remained until his death in 1952. Devoting most of his time to teaching, Page conducted research and wrote several textbooks, which appeared in various editions, often with the assistance of colleague Norman I. Adams. The books ''Electrodynamics'' and ''Introduction to Theoretical Physics'' "have had a profound influence on the development of many of America's leading mathematical physicists." In 1967

sponsored the first of the Leigh Page Prize Lectures, an honor since bestowed on several Nobel laureates and other notable

physicists 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 ...

Scientific contributions

As a physics educator, Leigh Page was an advocate of the relativistic electromagnetism approach to the field equations. It is common for lecturers to present the

Lorentz covariance In relativistic physics, Lorentz symmetry or Lorentz invariance, named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, is an equivalence of observation or observational symmetry due to special relativity implying that the laws of physics stay the same ...

of these equations, but Page said :As the dependence of electromagnetism on the relativity principle is far more intimate than is suggested by this covariance, it has seemed more logical to derive the electrodynamic equations directly from this principle. He derived a complete

electromagnetic In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions o ...

theory, including

Maxwell's equations Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits. ...

, from only

Coulomb's law Coulomb's inverse-square law, or simply Coulomb's law, is an experimental law of physics that quantifies the amount of force between two stationary, electrically charged particles. The electric force between charged bodies at rest is convention ...

and the

Lorentz transformation In physics, the Lorentz transformations are a six-parameter family of Linear transformation, linear coordinate transformation, transformations from a Frame of Reference, coordinate frame in spacetime to another frame that moves at a constant velo ...

. Page proposed an

emission theory Emission theory, also called emitter theory or ballistic theory of light, was a competing theory for the special theory of relativity, explaining the results of the Michelson–Morley experiment of 1887. Emission theories obey the principle of rel ...

that successfully explained

blackbody radiation Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within, or surrounding, a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an idealized opaque, non-reflective body). It has a specific, continuous spe ...

and other phenomena in

electrodynamic In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions of a ...

terms, but was eventually abandoned in favor of later theories of

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

. He reported on the

photoelectric effect The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid sta ...

in 1913. The theory of relativity generally concerns inertial frames of reference while students of dynamics must consider

acceleration In mechanics, acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. Accelerations are vector quantities (in that they have magnitude and direction). The orientation of an object's acceleration is given by t ...

s due to force. A frame of reference under constant acceleration is sometimes described as in

hyperbolic motion In geometry, hyperbolic motions are isometric automorphisms of a hyperbolic space. Under composition of mappings, the hyperbolic motions form a continuous group. This group is said to characterize the hyperbolic space. Such an approach to geom ...

. In 1936 Page and Adams presented in Physical Review their analysis of constantly accelerating frames as a "new relativity".

Books

* 1922
An Introduction to Electrodynamics from the Standpoint of Electron Theory
D. Van Nostrand Co., link from

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. * 1928: (with N.I. Adams) ''Introduction to Theoretical Physics'', D. Van Nostrand Co. * 1931, 49, 58: (with N.I. Adams
Principles of Electricity, 3rd edition
D. Van Nostrand Co., link from HathiTrust. * 1940: (with N.I. Adams)
Electrodynamics
', D. Van Nostrand Co., link from Internet Archive

References

External links

Leigh Page Prize Lectures
from Department of Physics,

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Page, Leigh 20th-century American physicists Particle physicists Quantum physicists Yale University faculty People from South Orange, New Jersey 1884 births 1952 deaths Theoretical physicists American textbook writers