Floyd Karker Richtmyer

Background

Floyd Karker Richtmyer was born on October 12, 1881 in Cobleskill, New York, the son of Robert and Elmina (Karker) Richtmyer, thrifty, well-to-do farmer folk. He had one half-brother twenty-one years older.

Education

After attending local public schools, Richtmyer studied with Perley Nutting at Cornell University. Richtmyer graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904 and Ph. D. in 1910.

Career

After receiving the Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1910, Floyd Richtmyer remained on the physics staff there until his death, becoming a full professor in 1918 and dean of the graduate school in 1931.

Richtmyer’s first researches were in photometry, specifically, the application of photo electricity to this field. After 1918, however, he turned his attention to X-ray spectroscopy and worked in this domain for the rest of his life. He became particularly interested in low-intensity satellite lines in X-ray spectra and developed high-precision methods for studying them. This research led to a broader program of investigation of widths and shapes of X-ray lines and absorption limits. This program was carried on at Cornell for many years, largely by Richtmyer’s graduate students under his guidance.

Richtmyer’s interest in teaching is reflected not only in the courses he gave and in his supervision of graduate students but also in his celebrated book, Introduction to Modern Physics (1928), which had considerable influence on the teaching of atomic physics and, with revisions and additions by colleagues after his death, remained a valuable work.

For several years he was also a member of the executive committee of the American Institute of Physics and was a long-time editor of the Review of Scientific Instruments. All who met Richtmyer were impressed with his active and unselfish devotion to the advancement of the profession of physics.

Achievements

• Richtmyer’s chief contributions to science were in his successful investigation of problems of X-ray absorption, of the faint X-ray lines known as "satellites", which evolved in a "double jump" theory to account for their origin. In recognition of this work the Franklin Institute awarded him its Levy Medal in 1929.
  
  His most known work which he published in 1928 titled "Introduction to Modern Physics" where he summed up and correlated a mass of hitherto uncollected material relating to the revolutionary new physical theories. Clear and logical, it became a best-seller among scientific books.
  
  In addition to his teaching and research, Richtmyer gave much time to the work of scientific societies, particularly during the last decade of his life. He served as editor-in-chief of the Review of Scientific Instruments and of the Journal of the Optical Society of America from 1932 until his death. He was active for a number of years in the work of the National Research Council, from 1930 to 1935 as chairman of its division of physical sciences. Besides much valuable work on committees and councils, he was president of the Optical Society of America (1920), of Sigma Xi, the scientific honorary society (1924 - 26), of the American Physical Society (1936), and of the American Association of Physics Teachers (1937 - 38). His honors also included the Doctor of Science degree from Lehigh University.
  
  The American Association of Physics Teachers established the Richtmyer Memorial Award, which is conferred annually and is typically given to educators who have made outstanding contributions as teachers in their fields.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Physical Review

    (Volume 29)

    1909
  • Physical Review

    (Volume 15)

    1920
  • Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society

    (Volume 8)

    1913
  • Introduction to Modern Physics 1955

Views

Quotations: "The whole history of physics proves that a new discovery is quite likely lurking at the next decimal place."

"When silhouetted against historical background Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory and its remarkable experimental confirmation by Hertz loomed up as large to the physicist of 1895 as the de Broglie-Schrödinger wave theory of matter and its experimental confirmation by Davison and Germer does to the physicist of to-day."

Membership

Richtmyer was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the National Academy of Sciences. He was a member, vice president (1918-19) and president (1920) of the Optical Society of America (OSA). He was also a member of the American Association Physics Teachers and its vice president from 1935 to 1936.

Personality

Floyd K. Richtmyer had a reputation of a kind man who worked too hard and took too few vacations. In his teaching, Richtmyer was a forceful and inspiring lecturer and an able guide of research. In his later years he generally had half a dozen doctoral candidates working under his direction. He often helped needy graduate students from his own pocket.

Also, Richtmyer was frank and sometimes blunt. His friendship was freely given, however, to those who merited it, and he had a warm smile that seldom deserted him.

Physical Characteristics: Richtmyer was a large man with what has been described as "an honest and rugged face".

Connections

On August 3, 1904, soon after graduating from college, Floyd Richtmyer had married Bernice Davis of Sloansville, New York, whom he had known since childhood. Of their four children- Robert Lawson, Robert Davis, Sarah Elizabeth, and Lawson Elwood - the oldest died at an early age; the two surviving sons followed their father's profession as physicists.

Father:

Robert Richtmyer

Mother:

Elmina (Karker) Richtmyer

Daughter:

Sarah Elizabeth

Son:

Robert Davis Richtmyer

October 10, 1910 – September 24, 2003, he was the author of textbooks including Principles of Advanced Mathematical Physics in 1978. In 1990 he was awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society for his book Difference Methods for Initial-Value Problems.

Son:

Lawson Edward Richtmyer

Wife:

Bernice Davis

Son:

Robert Lawson Richtmyer

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 11
  1975