Arthur Gordon Webster

Infobox_Scientist
name = Arthur Webster

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image_width = 300px
caption = Arthur Gordon Webster
birth_date = 1863
birth_place = Brookline
residence =
nationality =
death_date = 1923
death_place = Worcester
field = Physicist
work_institution = Clark University
alma_mater = Harvard College
University of Berlin
doctoral_advisor = Hermann von Helmholtz
doctoral_students = Robert Goddard
Albert Potter Wills
known_for = Acoustics
Ballistics
prizes = Elihu Thomson prize (1895)
footnotes =

Arthur Gordon Webster was the founder of the American Physical Society.

Webster had graduated from Harvard College in 1885 at the top of his class and had stayed for a year as instructor in mathematics and physics. At the end of that year he went to the University of Berlin where he studied for four years with Hermann von Helmholtz, receiving his PhD in 1890. Helmholtz is said to have considered Webster his favorite American student. During this period Webster also studied in Paris and Stockholm. He was unusually proficient in literature and was fluent in Latin, Greek, German, French, and Swedish, with a good knowledge of Italian and Spanish and competency in Russian and modern Greek.

In 1892, when Michelson left Clark for Chicago, President Hall appointed Webster assistant professor and head of the Physical Laboratories. At that time, only Johns Hopkins University and Clark University had doctoral programs in physics. Webster was promoted to full professor in 1900.

Webster was unusual for his time in that he was both a proficient mathematician as well as a competent experimentalist.

Webster's research was in the field of acoustics and mechanics. He is credited with developingan instrument to measure the absolute intensity of sound, the phonometer and for research on the gyroscope. He also gave graduate lectures in theoretical physics at Clark University, which have been published as three textbooks.

A group of twenty physicists, invited by Webster, founded the American Physical Society at a meeting at Fayerweather Hall in Columbia University on 20 May 1899. In 1903, Webster became president ofthe American Physical Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Webster committed suicide in 1923, following the closure of the mathematics department at Clark, after it was rumored that the physics department would be the next to be closed by the new president.

Books by Arthur Gordon Webster

* " [http://www.archive.org/details/theoryofelectric00websuoft Theory of electricity and magnetism, being lectures on mathematical physics] " (London, MacMillan, 1897)
* [http://www.archive.org/details/dynamicsofpartic00websrich The dynamics of particles and of rigid, elastic, and fluid bodies : being lectures on mathematical physics] (Leipzig, B.G. Teubner, 1912)
* "The Partial Differential Equations of Mathematical Physics" (1927) (posthumous, with a second edition by Samuel J. Plimpton published by Teubner in 1933. This second edition was reprinted by Dover in 1966)

External links

* Patents by A. G. Webster
** [http://www.google.com/patents?id=RMlOAAAAEBAJ Observing and Recording the Operation of Ordnance] Patent number: 1489566 (8 April 1924).
* Articles on A. G. Webster in scholarly journals
** A. Wilmer Duff " [http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.21.585 Arthur Gordon Webster] " Physical Review 21, 585 (1923).
** E. H. Hall " [http://dx.doi.org/0.1126/science.58.1490.37 Arthur Gordon Webster] " Science 58, 37 - 39 (1923).
** Joseph S. Ames [http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/awebster.pdf Biographical memoir of Arthur Gordon Webster]
** A. Wilmer Duff " [http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.1991322 Arthur Gordon Webster—Physicist, Mathematician, Linguist, and Orator] " American Journal of Physics 6, pp. 181-194 (1938).
** Melba Phillips [http://dx.doi.org/0.1063/1.881077 Arthur Gordon Webster, Founder of the APS] Physics Today, 40, 48 (1987).
* Articles on A. G. Webster in the press
** The Boston Globe [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/864882652.html?dids=864882652:864882652&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=May+16%2C+1923&author=&pub=Boston+Daily+Globe+(1923-1960)&edition=&startpage=1&desc=PROF+WEBSTER+TAKES+OWN+LIFE May 16, 1923]
** TIME Magazine, Monday May 28, 1923 [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,715619,00.html Death Notice of A. G. Webster]
** TIME Magazine, Monday June 11, 1923 [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,736117-1,00.html Editorial on the situation at Clark University in 1923] .
** New York Times [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F2081FFD3C5416738DDDAF0994DD405B838EF1D3 Wednesday 16 May, 1923] and [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20D17FA3B5516738DDDA90A94DD405B838EF1D3 Sunday 20 May, 1923] .
** The Nation [http://www.thenation.com/archive/detail/13633278 June 13, 1923 issue] .
** The Boston Globe [http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/866641202.html?dids=866641202:866641202&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Jun+17%2C+1923&author=&pub=Boston+Daily+Globe&edition=&startpage=A8&desc=BITTER+ATTACKS+AT+CLARK+UNIVERSITY+COMMENCEMENT+INDICATE+LINE+FINAL+EXERCISES+OF+YEAR+AT+AMHERST+MAY+TAKE June 17, 1923]
* A. G. Webster on the Web
** A Web page on Arthur Gordon Webster at [http://www.clarku.edu/departments/physics/history/history4.cfm Clark University]
** A picture of Arthur Gordon Webster's [http://photos.aip.org/images/catalog/webster_arthur_h1.jsp gyroscope]