Albert Potter Wills

Albert Wills
Born1873
Died1937
Florida, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materClark University
Scientific career
FieldsPhysicist
InstitutionsUniversity of Göttingen
University of Berlin
Bryn Mawr College
Cooper Hewitt Laboratory[1]
Columbia University
Thesis On the susceptibility of diamagnetic and weakly magnetic substances  (1897)
Doctoral advisorArthur Gordon Webster
Doctoral studentsIsidor Isaac Rabi
Francis Bitter
Ralph De Laer Kronig
Shirley Leon Quimby

Albert Potter Wills (1873–1937) was an American physicist who researched magnetic materials and was the PhD advisor of the Nobel Prize winner Isidor Isaac Rabi.

During his career he investigated magnetic susceptibilities, magnetic shielding, magnetostriction, conduction of electricity through mercury vapor, and hydrodynamics. He also wrote a textbook on vector analysis.

Wills received his PhD from Clark University in 1897 under Arthur Gordon Webster with a thesis entitled: On the susceptibility of diamagnetic and weakly magnetic substances.

During 1898–1899 Wills worked at the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin. During 1899–1902 he was at Bryn Mawr College and 1902–1903 at the Cooper Hewitt Laboratory.[1] His final appointment, 1903–1937, was at Columbia University.

In 1909 at Columbia University, Max Planck gave eight lectures in German. Wills translated the lectures into English, and in 1915 Columbia University Press published his translation.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Reich, Leonard S. (22 August 2002). The Making of American Industrial Research: Science and Business at GE and Bell, 1876-1926. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521522373. Retrieved 19 October 2018 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Planck, Max (1909). Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics, Delivered at Columbia in 1909 (translation of Acht Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik). Dover. ISBN 978-0-486-15156-4; 2012 reprint of 1st edition published in 1915 by Columbia University Press; translated by A. P. Willis; with a preface by Peter Pesic{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Sources

  • J. C. Poggendorff, Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch für Mathematik, Astronomie, Physik, Chemie und verwandte Wissenschaftsgebiete; P. Weinmeister, P., Ed.; Verlag-Chemie: Berlin, 1904; Bd. IV, p. 1644.
  • American Men of Science, 2nd ed.; Cattell, J.M., Eds.; Science Press: Lancaster, PA, 1910; pp. 515.
  • "Prof. Albert Wills is dead in Florida," The New York Times, Apr 18, 1937, p. 48 (or II 8), col. 4.
  • National Cyclopaedia of American Biography being the history of the United States. New York: James T White & Co, 1939; Vol 27, pp. 430–431.
  • A.P. Wills, "On the susceptibility of diamagnetic and weakly magnetic substances," PhD Thesis, Clark University, Worcester, MA, 1897. (Also appeared in Phil. Mag. 1898, 45, pp.432–447).
  • I.I. Rabi, Phys. Rev. 1927, 29(1), pp. 174–185