Louis Byrne Slichter was an American physicist and geophysicist. He organized University of California's Institute of Geophysics, the first such institute in the nation devoted to geophysics researches.
Background
He was born on May 19, 1896 in Madison, Wisconsin, United States, the son of Mary Louise Byrne, an elementary school teacher, and Charles Sumner Slichter, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Wisconsin.
Slichter had three brothers, who all attained prominence: Sumner Huber became professor of economics at Harvard University; Donald Charles became president of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company; and Allen McKinnon founded the Pelton Steel Casting Corporation.
Education
Slichter attended local schools and graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a B. A. in mechanical engineering in 1917. After the war ended, Slichter resumed his studies at the University of Wisconsin and obtained a Ph. D. in physics in 1922.
Career
He worked briefly for the General Electric Corporation in Schenectady, New York, on steam turbines. Later in 1917 he enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve as an ensign. His first assignment was to a research team in the National Research Committee's submarine committee, headed by Max Mason. Slichter worked with Mason on submarine detection devices at the Navy Experimental Laboratory in New London, Connecticut, then transferred to the Royal Navy's Subchaser Base at Plymouth, England, in 1918. He was discharged in 1919.
From 1922 to 1924 he was employed by the Submarine Signal Corporation, a Boston firm specializing in detection of undersea mineral deposits. In 1924 he joined with Mason again to create a consulting firm, Mason, Slichter and Hay, in Madison, Wis. , which provided geophysical prospecting advice to mining companies. Mason was largely occupied with the presidency of the University of Chicago during the years 1925-1928, so most of the practical work was left to Slichter and Hay. In 1927 Hay left, so the firm was reorganized as Mason, Slichter and Gauld, with Brownlee B. Gauld.
In 1927 Slichter published his first paper, "Geophysical Prospecting Methods, " a chapter in Robert Peele's Mining Engineering Handbook. Meanwhile, Mason had joined the staff of the Rockefeller Foundation; he became its president in 1929. As business conditions worsened after the onset of the Great Depression, the partners decided to dissolve the firm in 1930, and Slichter returned to the academic community.
Slichter taught briefly at the California Institute of Technology (1930 - 1931). He then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to organize its geophysics program. He was an associate professor of geophysics in 1931, then a full professor (1932 - 1945). During this time Slichter did research involving the detection of subsurface structures, building upon his commercial experience.
In 1932 he published a groundbreaking paper with mathematician Rudolph E. Langer, titled "The Theory of the Interpretation of Seismic Travel-Time Curves in Horizontal Structures. " He also did experimental work with his graduate students, including analysis of data, employing electrical currents generated by underground telephone circuits borrowed from the local telephone company during the early morning hours, to measure the electrical conductivity of the earth's crust. Using portable seismographs that he had helped design and construct, Slichter performed experiments based on explosions at local quarries. He also published a seminal paper on radioactivity and slow-speed heat conduction through the earth's mantle, "Cooling of the Earth, " in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America (1941).
After the outbreak of World War II, Slichter joined the antisubmarine committee created by the National Academy of Sciences, at the request of the Department of the Navy, to evaluate antisubmarine techniques. The committee's recommendations for more basic and applied research led to the creation of a section of the National Defense Research Committee dealing with antisubmarine research; Slichter traveled on its behalf to England in 1941 to ascertain the status of British antisubmarine research and warfare.
After the creation of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), Slichter joined the OSRD Division 6, concerning antisubmarine warfare, in 1942.
Slichter taught briefly at the University of Wisconsin (1946 - 1947), then went to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). While at UCLA, Slichter became interested in earth tides and began publishing a series of papers on the subject. He still retained an interest in the practical side of his subject, and published "The Need of a New Philosophy of Prospecting".
Slichter resigned as its head in 1962 and became an emeritus professor in 1963. His retirement was followed by the publication of a festschrift, Papers in Geophysics in Honor of Louis Byrne Slichter (1963). After his retirement Slichter retained an office at the university and continued his research, primarily in the UCLA gravity program, and in projects measuring earth tides and other geophysical data in Antarctica.