Joseph Sweetman Ames. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.
School period
Gallery of Joseph Ames
The Shattuck School in Fairbault, Minnesota.
College/University
Gallery of Joseph Ames
Career
Gallery of Joseph Ames
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Taken at presentation of testimonial to Ames (not pictured).
Gallery of Joseph Ames
Joseph Sweetman Ames, physics professor at Johns Hopkins University, provost of the university from 1926 until 1929, and university president from 1929 until 1935.
Gallery of Joseph Ames
Joseph Sweetman Ames, physics professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Gallery of Joseph Ames
Joseph Sweetman Ames
Achievements
Joseph Sweetman Ames, physics professor at Johns Hopkins University, provost of the university from 1926 until 1929, and university president from 1929 until 1935.
Membership
Awards
Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics
In 1935, Ames was made an honorary fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and received from the Smithsonian Institution the Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics.
Joseph Sweetman Ames, physics professor at Johns Hopkins University, provost of the university from 1926 until 1929, and university president from 1929 until 1935.
Joseph Sweetman Ames, physics professor at Johns Hopkins University, provost of the university from 1926 until 1929, and university president from 1929 until 1935.
In 1935, Ames was made an honorary fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and received from the Smithsonian Institution the Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics.
(This book, "The discovery of induced electric currents", ...)
This book, "The discovery of induced electric currents", by Joseph Sweetman Ames, is a replication of a book originally published before 1900. It has been restored by human beings, page by page, so that you may enjoy it in a form as close to the original as possible. This book was created using print-on-demand technology. Thank you for supporting classic literature.
Joseph Sweetman Ames was a prominent American physicist. He is best remembered as one of the founding members of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the predecessor of NASA) and its longtime chairman (1919–1939). In 1935 the Smithsonian Institution awarded Ames the Langley Gold Medal for his leadership of the NACA.
Background
Ames, Joseph Sweetman was born on July 3, 1864 in Manchester, Vermont, and was the son of Doctor George Lapham and Elizabeth (Bacon) Ames. When Ames’s father, a physician, died in 1869; in 1874 his mother married Dr. James Dobbin, rector of the Shattuck School in Fairbault, Minnesota.
Education
Ames received his general education at the Shattuck School in Fairbault, Minnesota. At home Ames acquired a lasting taste for classical education, books, and good society. At Johns Hopkins University, where he went after the Shattuck School, he developed an enthusiasm for physics. After graduating in 1886, he spent two years in Helmholtz’ laboratory in Berlin. He returned to Johns Hopkins to take his Ph.D. in 1890 under Henry A. Rowland, the inventor of the curved spectral grating, and then joined the Johns Hopkins faculty.
Ames served as a director of the physical laboratory from 1901 to 1926, provost of the university from 1926 to 1929, and president from 1929 to 1935.
Ames’s research was limited in quantity and largely confined to the field of spectroscopy. Working closely with Rowland in the 1890’s, he struggled with the problem of finding relationships among the lines of particular spectra. Johann Balmer had already advanced his formula for the hydrogen lines; Ames, measuring with great exactitude the spectra of more complex atoms, tried empirically to find relationships among the wave numbers (the reciprocals of the wave lengths in vacuo). He concluded that the answer could come only from theoretical considerations. But by 1913, when Bohr’s theory was published, Ames had given up research and had turned to administration.
Ames was an able administrator and kept the physics department at Johns Hopkins alive despite persistent budgetary problems by cooperating with the National Bureau of Standards. He encouraged the faculty to offer courses there and graduate students to do their research at the Bureau’s well-equipped laboratories.
In World War I Ames, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, was drawn into the affairs of government research. He served on the Academy’s National Research Council and on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The NACA, created by Congress in 1915 to promote the scientific study of flight, was deeply enmeshed in policy matters. Ames got into trouble for writing publicly that the government’s ambitious aircraft program was far behind schedule; Secretary of Commerce William C. Redfield considered the statement a treasonous act. But Ames, as it turned out, was right. His judgment won increasing respect, and he became chairman of the NACA’s Executive Committee in 1919, the year that he was elected president of the American Physical Society.
Ames held the chairmanship of the Executive Committee until 1936 and served as chairman of the entire NACA from 1927 to 1939.
Towards the end of his life, Ames’ work in aviation gained further recognition. Ames died on June 24, 1943, after being in failing health for several years due to a stroke.
Ames grew up in the religious family and was raised an Episcopalian.
Membership
Ames was a member of the American Physical Society and was elected its president in 1919.
Personality
Ames was a man of courtly manner and executive talent.
Quotes from others about the person
"His courage and high spirit" said his close friend, Dr. J. B. Whitehead, "were never seen more clearly than during his last illness when he was nearly helpless for months. I saw him often and he was always cheerful; although his progress was steadily downward, he always reported his condition as "fair"."
Connections
In 1899 Ames married Mary B. Harrison, a widow from Maryland.
Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics,
United States
In 1935, Ames was made an honorary fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and received from the Smithsonian Institution the Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics.
In 1935, Ames was made an honorary fellow of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and received from the Smithsonian Institution the Langley Gold Medal for Aerodynamics.