Background
Earl Larkin Williams was born August 22, 1903.
Earl Larkin Williams was born August 22, 1903.
He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University, and the University of Michigan.
He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1924 and his Master of Arts a year later, both from Swarthmore College. In addition to working at The George Washington University, Williams held positions as an Instructor in Mathematics and Astronomy at Muhlenberg College (1925-1926), Instructor of Astronomy at Ohio State University (1920–1931) and Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Denison University for one semester in 1931. Beyond his employment as a professor, Williams also held a position as the Assistant Latitude Observer of United States. Coast and Geodetic Survey operating an observatory at Gaithersburg, Maryland (U.S.) from 1932 to 1941.
Earl Larkin Williams wrote a few newspaper articles in 1941 on total solar eclipse expeditions.
He also wrote in the Transaction of the International Astronomical Union in 1935 On the Instrumental Adjustment of a Zenith Telescope, in which he proposed a new method of offsetting the effect of flexure by making the middle thread of the telescope follow the meridian precisely at all zenith distances. In 1945, he became a Lecturer in Mathematics until 1948.
Williams then became and remained a Lecturer in Mathematics from 1949 until his resignation from the university January 31, 1955. According to the obituary in the Washington Post, Williams died on February 7, 1974 and was buried in the Gartner Sandison Funeral Home in Maryland.
He was a member of the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, the American Geophysical Union, Gamma Alpha, Sigma Xi (associate), and Pi Delta Epsilon. Williams is mentioned in the 1946 Cherry Tree Yearbook as a member of the math faculty and he is mentioned in the 1946 George Washington University Bulletin.