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Concentrates on oil-drop experiment. Family background and early education; undergraduate at Brigham Young University (physics); graduate at University of Chicago, Robert Millikan and Albert A. Michelson as physicists and teachers. Extensive coverage of the work and relationship with Millikan on the "oil-drop" technique with two versions of the nature of the collaboration presented by Vern Knudsen, one from Millikan's autobiography and Fletcher's own account. Work on modification of Stokes' law and Brownian motion. Impact of electric charge measurement. Teaching at Brigham Young 1911-1916; acoustics work at Western Electric Co.(later Bell Labs) on the determination of the critical bands of hearing; dynamics of the cochlea; development of stereophonic sound. Role in formation of Acoustical Society of America. Interests in electronic reproduction of musical tones. Successful effort to develop a school of engineering at Brigham Young. Discussion of Millikan's Nobel Prize, comments by Knudsen. Achievements of son. Also prominently mentioned are: Louis Begeman; Science (journal), and United States Bureau of Standards.
Family life and early childhood environment; undergraduate studies at Case School for Applied Sciences, 1925-1929; M.S., 1933; influence of Dayton C. Miller; reanalysis of Miller’s absolute motion experiments, meetings with Albert Einstein; National Bureau of Standards (NBS) work on ionosphere and standard frequency regulation, 1929-1930; contact with University of Chicago, l930s and 1940s, thesis work on photon scattering under Arthur H. Compton, 1935; World War II sonar work in submarine warfare; architectural acoustics interests; tasks as Chairman of Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University, 1940-1958; consultant to Argonne National Laboratory, neutrino experiments, 1953-1969. Associations with D. C. Miller and A. H. Compton, their experimental style, personalities and influences on others; climate of opinion around relativity and quantum mechanics; the crucial Michelson-Morley experiments and others in relativity; comments on the resistance of the older generation of physicists; reaction to fission and the atomic bomb; problems of modern physics and comments on relation between pure and applied sciences, the existence of a scientific method, physics as related to other sciences, approaches to the history of science. Also prominently mentioned are: Samuel K. Allison, Luis Walter Alvarez, Samuel Austin, Raymond Thayer Birge, R. Blondlot, Niels Henrik David Bohr, C. P. Boner, Bragg, William Lawrence, Sir, Gregory Breit, Karl Taylor Compton, Walter Dale Compton, Karl Kelchner Darrow, R. L. Doan, Saul Dushman, Carl Henry Eckart, Thomas Alva Edison, Enrico Fermi, Armand Hippolyte Fizeau, Lester L. Foldy, Gustav Ludwig Hertz, Oliver Wendell Holmes, F. R. von Horn, J. W. Horton, William Vermillion Houston, Frank Clark Hoyt, Z. Jeffries, Edwin Crawford Kemble, G. Kuerti, Joseph Larmor, Ernest Orlando Lawrence, F. Leone, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, W. H. Martin, Emanuel Maxwell, Sidney McCuskey, Albert Abraham Michelson, Dayton C. Miller, Robert Andrews Millikan, Jason John Nassau, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Henri Poincare, Baron Rayleigh, John William Strutt, Owen Willans Richardson, Henry A. Rowland, Henry Norris Russell, Ernest Rutherford, Harlow Shapley, John Clarke Slater, G. Szell, John Torrence Tate, Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, Joseph John Thomson, Merle Antony Tuve, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, M. Walsh, M. Walters, Robert Williams Wood; Bell Telephone Laboratories, Case School of Applied Science, George Washington University Law School, Mount Wilson Observatory, Phillips Petroleum Co., United States Navy New London Laboratory, and United States Office of Scientific Research and Development.
Family life and early childhood environment; undergraduate studies at Case School for Applied Sciences (1925-29), M.S. 1933, influence of D.C. Miller; reanalysis of Miller’s absolute motion experiments, meetings with Einstein; National Bureau of Standards work on ionosphere and standard frequency regulation 1929-30; contact with University of Chicago (1930’s and 1940’s), thesis work on photon scattering under A.H. Compton, 1935; World War II sonar work in submarine warfare; architectural acoustics interests; tasks as Chairman of Physics Department at Case Western Reserve University 1940-58; consultant to Argonne National Laboratory, neutrino experiments,1953-69. Additional topics include: associations with D.C. Miller and A.H. Compton, their experimental style, personalities and influences on others; the climate of opinion around relativity and quantum mechanics; crucial experiments of Michelson-Morley and others in relativity; comments on the resistance of the older generation of physicists; RS’s reaction to fission and the atomic bomb; problems of modern physics and comments on the relation between pure and applied sciences, the existence of a scientific method, physics as related to other sciences, approaches to the history of science.