Henry Andrews Bumstead

Background

Henry Andrews Bumstead was born on March 12, 1870 in the small town of Pekin, Illinois, close to Peoria. His father was Samuel Josiah Bumstead, a physician of local prominence, and his mother, Sarah Ellen Seiwell.

Education

Bumstead's elementary education was obtained in the high school of the neighboring city of Decatur, from which he went to Johns Hopkins in 1887 with the intention of preparing himself to follow his father's profession. There he came under the influence of Rowland, who so stimulated the interest which he had already shown in physics that he decided to specialize in that subject.

In 1893 he went to New Haven as instructor in the Sheffield Scientific School and received his doctor's degree in physics from Yale in 1897.

Career

In 1900 Bumstead's success as a teacher was recognized by promotion to an assistant professorship. In spite of his heavy teaching schedule he always found time for research. Among his earlier investigations were: a theoretical discussion of the reflection of electric waves at the free end of a parallel wire system.

With R. G. Van Name he edited the Scientific Papers of J. Willard Gibbs in 1906. The first Silliman lectures at Yale were given by J. J. Thomson in 1903. Bumstead was greatly interested in the investigations in progress at the Cavendish Laboratory and decided to spend the year 1904-05 at Cambridge in research.

His experiments there led to the surprising conclusion that the heat developed by the absorption of X-rays in lead is double that produced in zinc, which seemed explicable only on the ground that the rays effected a disintegration of the lead atoms through which they passed, liberating energy which was then converted into heat.

Unfortunately later work by Angerer and by Bumstead himself failed to confirm the earlier result, which was shown to be due to faulty heat insulation of the metals under investigation. On his return to New Haven, Bumstead succeeded A. W. Wright as professor of physics in Yale College and director of the Sloane Laboratory. These positions, with occasional leaves of absence, he held until his death from heart failure at the age of fifty.

In 1908 he published a critical comparison of the scientific view-points of Einstein and Lorenz in which he made an attempt to extend Einstein's methods to gravitational problems. The later of these researches showed that fast-moving electrons are produced when alpha rays collide with gaseous molecules.

During the early stages of the World War Bumstead was a member of the national committee appointed to examine the merits of proposed anti-submarine devices. Early in 1918 he went to London as scientific attaché of the American Embassy. While there his tact and wide acquaintance among men of science enhanced his services as a clearing house for scientific information of military value.

On his return to New Haven a few months after the Armistice he took an active part in the reorganization of the University then in progress. Before the end of the academic year he was called to succeed James Rowland Angell, president-elect of Yale, as chairman of the National Research Council.

As retiring vice-president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science he delivered the annual address at the meeting in Pittsburgh in December 1917 on "Present Tendencies in Theoretical Physics".

Achievements

• Henry Andrews Bumstead was not only a successful theorist and teacher in the field of physics, but also his experiments had a significant input for science as well. For example, he experimented with heat and came to the surprising conclusion that the heat developed by the absorption of X-rays in lead is double that produced in zinc. He also published an important observations on fast-moving electrons that are produced when alpha rays collide with gaseous molecules. At the beginning of the World War Bumstead participated in examination of the merits of proposed anti-submarine devices. As of his social life, he served as a fellow of the American Physical Society for many years, and was an editor of its official publication, the Physical Review, and president of the Society. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. At the last year of his life Bumstead was elected Chairman of the National Research Council.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Scientific Papers Of J. Willard Gibbs, Ph.d. Ll.d., Formerly Professor Of Mathematical Physics In Yale University: Dynamics. Vector Analysis And ... Algebra. Electromagnetic Theory Of Light, Etc

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The collected works of J. Willard Gibbs, Volume 2 Hardcover

    (Lang:- English, Pages 531. Reprinted in 2015 with the hel...)

  • book

  • JOSIAH WILLARD GIBBS PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS IN YALE UNIVERSITY 1871-1903

Views

Since the preparation of the critical survey of electro-magnetic theories which had constituted his doctor's thesis, Bumstead had maintained a keen interest in theoretical physics.

Membership

He was a member of the American Physical Society.

Connections

In 1896 he was married to Luetta Ullrich of Decatur, Illinois, who survived him. The couple had two children, John Henry (born 1897) and Eleanor (born 1902). John Henry became a medical doctor in 1923, after study at Johns Hopkins University. He later joined Yale Medical School. Eleanor married William E. Stevenson, a President of Oberlin College (1946–59).

Father:

Samuel Josiah Bumstead

Mother:

Sarah Ellen Seiwell

collaborator:

R. G. Van Name

Wife:

Luetta Ullrich

Daughter:

Eleanor (Bumstead) Stevenson

born 1902

Son:

John Henry Bumstead

born 1897

associate:

A. W. Wright

References

• Biographical Memoir of Henry Andrews Bumstead, 1870-1920: National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, V13, Second Memoir