Dudley Williams

Background

Williams, Dudley was born on April 12, 1912 in Covington, Georgia, United States. Son of Arthur Dudley and Ethel (Turner) Williams.

Education

He pursued graduate studies at several institutions, but settled on University of North Carolina, where he received his Master of Arts in 1934 and his Doctor of Philosophy in physics in 1936 for a thesis on International Rectifier spectroscopy.

Career

He served as president of the Optical Society of America from 1976 to 1980. In 1927 he entered Oxford College of Emory University, at Oxford, Georgia. A family move prompted him to transfer to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree in 1933.

In 1937 Williams married Loraine Decherd, a graduate physics student whom he met while teaching at University of Texas in 1934.

She died in 1988. Francis Dudley Williams died on December 2, 2004 at Mesilla Valley Hospice in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was 92 years old. In 1936 Williams was employed by the physics faculty at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

He taught there until 1941. From 1941 through 1943 he participated in radar development at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s radiation laboratory, then was moved to the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to work on the atomic bomb.

The galvanometers he designed were used to measure the thermal radiation produced during the Trinity test in July 1945.

He remained with Los Alamos until 1946. In 1946 Williams joined Ohio State University, where he gained an international reputation in International Rectifier physics. He and another Ohio State University physics professor (George Shortley) co-wrote wrote an engineering-physics textbook that remained in print for 30 years.

In 1963 Williams joined North Carolina State University as head of its physics department.

In 1964 he accepted a position as Regents Distinguished Professor of Physics at Kansas State University in Manhattan, where he remained until his retirement in 1982. While at KSU, Williams continued his research in International Rectifier spectroscopy of gases, liquids, and solids, and investigated transmission and reflection spectra.

He also continued teaching, and loved to do lecture demonstrations.

Achievements

• Dudley Williams has been listed as a noteworthy Physicist by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

• book

  • Physics for Science and Engineering

Membership

Fellow American Physical Society, Optical Society of America (president 1979, associate editor journal. since 1958). Member American Association Physics Teachers, Phi Beta Kappa (past chapter president), Sigma Xi (past chapter president) Clubs: Cosmos, Rotary.

Connections

Married Loraine Decherd, June 12, 1937. Children— Francis Dudley, Harriet Thomson.

Father:

Arthur Dudley Williams

Mother:

Ethel (Turner) Williams

Spouse:

Loraine Decherd

child:

Francis Dudley Williams

child:

Harriet Thomson Williams