Walter McKinley Nielsen (December 18, 1900,

Tyler, Minnesota Tyler is a city in Lincoln County, Minnesota, United States. The population in was 1,143 at the 2010 census. History Tyler was platted in 1879. It was named for C. B. Tyler, a Minnesota land agent and newspaper editor. A post office has been in ...

– January 8, 1981) was an American professor of physics and one of the founders of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

's physics department.

Biography

Nielsen studied at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, completing a bachelor's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1922 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1925. He was the third person to join the physics department at the newly endowed Duke University. There he was an instructor from 1925 to 1928, an assistant professor from 1928 to 1937, and a full professor from 1937 to 1966, when he retired as professor emeritus. He was on leave of absence for the academic year 1929–1930 as a

National Research Council National Research Council may refer to: * National Research Council (Canada), sponsoring research and development * National Research Council (Italy), scientific and technological research, Rome * National Research Council (United States), part of ...

Fellow at the

Bartol Research Foundation The Bartol Research Institute (formerly the ''Bartol Research Foundation'') is a scientific research institution at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Delaware. Its members belong to the faculty of the University of Delaw ...

and during World War II. His promotion of research and leadership brought Duke University's physics department "into international prominence." Under his influence, Duke University's physics department appointed a number of outstanding physicists, including

Martin M. Block Martin Moses Block (November 29, 1925 – July 22, 2016) was an American physicist, known as a co-discoverer with Aihud Pevsner of the eta meson in 1961. Pevsner was the leader of the Johns Hopkins University team, and Block was the leader of the ...

William M. Fairbank William Martin Fairbank (24 February 1917 in Minneapolis – 30 September 1989 in Palo Alto) was an American physicist known in particular for his work on liquid helium. Career Fairbank was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and earned an AB from Wh ...

Walter Gordy Walter Gordy, (April 20, 1909 – October 6, 1985) was an American physicist best known for his experimental work in microwave spectroscopy. His laboratory at Duke University became a center for research in this field, and he authored one of t ...

Fritz London Fritz Wolfgang London (March 7, 1900 – March 30, 1954) was a German physicist and professor at Duke University. His fundamental contributions to the theories of chemical bonding and of intermolecular forces (London dispersion forces) are today c ...

, Henry W. Newson,

Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim LotharHis name is sometimes misspelled as ''Lother''. Wolfgang Nordheim (November 7, 1899, Munich – October 5, 1985, La Jolla, California) was a German born Jewish American theoretical physicist. He was a pioneer in the applications of quantum ...

, and

Hertha Sponer Hertha Sponer (1 September 1895 – 27 February 1968) was a German physicist and chemist who contributed to modern quantum mechanics and molecular physics and was the first woman on the physics faculty of Duke University. She was the older siste ...

. Nielsen’s doctoral students include

Karl Z. Morgan Karl Ziegler Morgan (September 27, 1907 – June 8, 1999), was an American physicist who was one of the founders of the field of radiation health physics. Late in life, after a long career in the Manhattan Project and at Oak Ridge National Labora ...

. Nielsen chaired the Duke University Council for many years, the Council of the

Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is a consortium of American universities headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with offices in Arlington, Virginia, Arvada, Colorado, Belcamp, Maryland, Cincinnati, Ohio and staff at other locations acros ...

(of which he was a member from 1946 to 1959), and the Southeastern Section of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

(APS) for one year. In 1937 he was elected a

Fellows of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of American Physic ...

. In 1946 he received the

Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award {{infobox military award , name = , image = DON Distinguished Civilian Service.png , image_size = 100px , caption = Department of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Medal , presenter = Departm ...

with citation for "outstanding service to the Navy in the field of degaussing and magnetic stabilization of ships". In 1928 he married Katharine Phelps Tryon (1901–1975). They had two sons and a daughter. In retirement Walter and Katharine Nielsen lived in their house built in 1937 in

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

and in their smaller house near

Boone, North Carolina Boone is a town in and the county seat of Watauga County, North Carolina, United States. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, Boone is the home of Appalachian State University and the headquarters for the disaster a ...

in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

. There he made a large collection of photographs of wildflowers.

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nielsen, Walter M. 1900 births 1981 deaths University of Minnesota alumni Duke University faculty 20th-century American physicists Cosmic ray physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society People from Tyler, Minnesota Recipients of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award