Robert William Ditchburn 1929-1946
Robert William Ditchburn was born on 14th January 1903 in Waterloo, Lancashire. He attended Bootle Grammar School where his father was headmaster. Aged 16 he earned a scholarship to Liverpool University. He graduated BSc Hons in 1922. He did his PhD in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge working on the absorption of light by potassium vapours. After his PhD, he applied for Fellowship in Trinity College Dublin, the first instance where candidates from other universities could apply. Ditchburn was successful and criteria for election to Fellowship now included submitted work already completed and the candidate’s future promise. He was appointed Erasmus Smith’s Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1929, serving until 1946.
Ditchburn immediately took on reorganisation of the experimental physics course. He submitted a report to the College Board, giving the course greater structure, doubling the time Senior Sophisters spent doing research work, and reducing the experimental work done by theoretical physicists, instead requiring additional coursework and reading on relativity and quantum mechanics. Ditchburn published 35 papers on subjects including vacuum technology, the uncertainty principle, the retina of the eye, the refugee problem, and continued his work on the absorption of light by potassium vapours, during his tenure as Erasmus Smith’s professor. He was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1930. He returned to England in 1946 as head of the physics department at Reading University, until 1968. His textbook, ‘Light’ (1953), was a standard text on the subject for many years. He died on 8th April 1987.
Sources
- Optica (2022), In Memoriam: Robert William Ditchburn, 1903-1987, Optica https://www.optica.org/en-us/about/newsroom/obituaries/2022/robert_william_ditchburn/
- Eric Finch (2016), Three Centuries of Physics in Trinity College Dublin, Living Edition
- University of Reading (Accessed July 2023), Ditchburn, Robert William, University of Reading https://collections.reading.ac.uk/special-collections/collections/ditchburn-robert-william-physicist/
- Image of Robert William Ditchburn, Downloaded from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ on 14 July 2023