John William Strutt Rayleigh

  1. John Rayleigh was born in 1842 and died in 1919
  2. He was a British mathematician, physicist, and Nobel laureate, known for his research in wave phenomena.
  3. Rayleigh was born in Lanford Grove, near Maldon, England
  4. He went to Cambridge University.
  5. He served as professor of experimental physics and director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge from 1879 to 1884
  6. He was also professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, London, from 1887 to 1905.
  7. He became chancellor of Cambridge in 1908.
  8. Rayleigh did research into physical optics, light, colour, and electricity and the dynamics of resonance and vibrations of gas and elastic solids.
  9. He was also responsible for the determination of electrical units of measurement.
  10. In 1894 he and the British chemist Sir William Ramsay discovered the inert element argon. For this discovery Rayleigh was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in physics. Ramsay won the Nobel Prize in chemistry the same year.