The Rumford Chair of Physics (originally the Rumford Chair and Lectureship on the Application of Science to the Useful Arts) is an

endowed A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

ship established at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1816 under the will of

Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, FRS (german: Reichsgraf von Rumford; March 26, 1753August 21, 1814) was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th-century revol ...

Endowment

Specifically, an initial annuity of $1000 (with reversion of certain further substantial annuities) was bequeathed “for the purpose of founding ��a new institution and professorship, in order to teach by regular courses of academical and public lectures, accompanied with proper experiments, the utility of the physical and mathematical sciences for the improvement of the useful arts, and for the extension of the industry, prosperity, happiness, and well-being of society.” The centrality of “useful” knowledge, in contradistinction to the classical tradition then dominant at Harvard, was further emphasised by a stipulation that the professorship was to be held outside of the philosophy department.

History

The first incumbent,

Jacob Bigelow Jacob Bigelow (February 27, 1787January 10, 1879) was an American physician, botanist and botanical illustrator. He was architect of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts (in which he is interred), husband to Mary Scollay, and the f ...

, a physician and botanist, pursued a modernising agenda with moderate success, incorporating practical demonstrations into his lectures over the course of a decade-long tenure. In contrast, his autodidact successor, the inventor

Daniel Treadwell Daniel Treadwell (October 10, 1791 – February 27, 1872) was an American inventor. Amongst his most important inventions are a hemp-spinning machine for the production of cordage, and a method of constructing cannon from wrought iron and steel. ...

, appears to have been a rather less fervent reformer, seemingly believing that the skills necessary for creative practice in science and engineering were not really amenable to being taught. Fortuitously, however, the eventual appointment of the third Rumford Professor, engineer and chemist

Eben Norton Horsford Eben Norton Horsford (27 July 1818 – 1 January 1893) was an American scientist who taught agricultural chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard from 1847 to 1863. Later he was known for his reformulation of baking powder, his int ...

, coincided with the foundation of the

Lawrence Scientific School The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...

at Harvard in 1847, facilitating the inception of a highly practical curriculum informed by links with local chemical industries. Following the intervening tenure of

Oliver Wolcott Gibbs Oliver Wolcott Gibbs (February 21, 1822 – December 9, 1908) was an American chemist. He is known for performing the first electrogravimetric analyses, namely the reductions of copper and nickel ions to their respective metals. Biograph ...

, the appointment of John Trowbridge to the Rumford Chair in 1888 heralded a further shift in emphasis; henceforth, original research would become at least equal in importance alongside practical teaching. All subsequent incumbents have enjoyed highly distinguished research careers, such as

Edwin Herbert Hall Edwin Herbert Hall (November 7, 1855 – November 20, 1938) was an American physicist, who discovered the eponymous Hall effect. Hall conducted thermoelectric research and also wrote numerous physics textbooks and laboratory manuals. Biograp ...

(discoverer of the

Hall Effect The Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was disco ...

) and

Nicolaas Bloembergen Nicolaas Bloembergen (March 11, 1920 – September 5, 2017) was a Dutch-American physicist and Nobel laureate, recognized for his work in developing driving principles behind nonlinear optics for laser spectroscopy. During his career, he was a p ...

(

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...

for his work on

laser 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 ...

Recipients

Holders of the Rumford Chair have been: *

(1816–1827) *

(1834–1845) *

(1847-1863) *

(1863-1887) * John Trowbridge (1888–1910) *

(1914-1921) *

George Washington Pierce George Washington Pierce (January 11, 1872 – August 25, 1956) was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at Harvard University and inventor in the development of electronic telecommunications. The son of a Texas cattle rancher, h ...

(1921–1940) *

Emory Leon Chaffee Emory Leon Chaffee (April 15, 1885 – March 8, 1975) was an American physicist. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1911 to 1953. Chaffee was born in Somerville, Massachusetts. He studied electrical engineering and received his bachel ...

(1940-1953) *

Frederick Vinton Hunt Frederick Vinton Hunt (February 15, 1905 – April 21, 1972) was an inventor, a scientist and a professor at Harvard University who worked in the field of acoustic engineering. He made significant contributions to room acoustics, regulated power ...

(1953-1972) *

(1974-1980) *

Michael Tinkham Michael Tinkham (February 23, 1928 – November 4, 2010) was an American physicist. He was Rumford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University. He is best known for his work on superconductiv ...

(1980–?) * Jene A. Golovchenko (?–2018)

References

{{Reflist Professorships at Harvard University Professorships in physics 1816 establishments in Massachusetts