Ralph Alanson Sawyer (January 5, 1895 – December 6, 1978) was an American physicist and a leader in American science. A

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

native, he graduated from the

Atkinson Academy Atkinson Academy is a public elementary school at 17 Academy Avenue in Atkinson, New Hampshire. It is a part of the Timberlane Regional School District. Built in 1803, it is claimed to be the oldest standing co-educational school in the United Sta ...

in 1911 and in 1915 from

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. He then went to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

where, under the direction of R. A. Millikan, he finished his

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in 1919, a time during which he also served as a scientific liaison officer in the

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. At the invitation of

Harrison M. Randall Harrison McAllister Randall (December 17, 1870 – November 10, 1969) was an American physicist whose leadership from 1915 to 1941 brought the University of Michigan to international prominence in experimental and theoretical physics. Biography R ...

, Sawyer then joined the faculty of the physics department at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, an affiliation that he retained for his entire career. At Michigan, he began by doing work in ultraviolet spectroscopy for studies of

atomic structure Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, an ...

; he also did much to develop industrial applications of

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

. In later years, his talent for administration brought him to positions of scientific, military, and academic leadership that extended beyond his formal retirement from Michigan in 1964. Sawyer was the civilian director of the 1946 Bikini atomic bomb tests, president of the Optical Society of America from 1955 to 1957, and was awarded the Frederic Ives Medal in 1963. He was also dean of the graduate school and vice president for research at the

. Sawyer died in 1978, at 83 years of age, in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

References

External links

Articles Published by early OSA Presidents
Journal of the Optical Society of America

Archival collections

Ralph Alanson Sawyer student notes, 1916-1917, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sawyer, Ralph A. 1895 births 1978 deaths University of Michigan faculty Presidents of Optica (society) 20th-century American physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society

See also

References

External links

Archival collections