Sneha Girap (Editor)

Robert William Boyle

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Alma mater
  
McGill University

Name
  
Robert Boyle

Education
  
McGill University

Residence
  
Canada, United Kingdom

Known for
  
ASDIC (Sonar)

Role
  
Physicist

Doctoral advisor
  
Ernest Rutherford

Robert William Boyle mininghalloffamecaimagesuploadsinducteesBoyle
Nationality
  
Newfoundlander, Canadian, British

Institutions
  
University of Manchester University of Alberta Board of Invention and Research National Research Council of Canada

Notable awards
  
Royal Society of Canada Flavelle Medal (1940)

Died
  
April 18, 1955, London, United Kingdom

Fields
  
Physics, Radioactive decay, Ultrasound

Robert Boyle - Wikivids (2017)


Robert William Boyle (October 2, 1883 – April 18, 1955) was a physicist and one of the most important early pioneers in the development of sonar.

Boyle was born in 1883 at Carbonear in the Dominion of Newfoundland. Boyle left Newfoundland for Montreal, Quebec in the Dominion of Canada where he trained at McGill University under Nobel Prize winner Sir Ernest Rutherford, in the then fledgling field of radioactivity. He earned McGill's first Doctor of Philosophy in physics in 1909. He then moved to England to continue his work by following Rutherford to the University of Manchester.

In 1912 he returned to Canada at the request of Henry Marshall Tory to become head of the physics department at the University of Alberta, and shifted his research to ultrasonics.

During the First Great War Boyle volunteered his expertise to the British Admiralty and, with the help of his old teacher Ernest Rutherford, he joined the Board of Inventions and Research and worked with British physicist Albert Beaumont Wood, a fellow student of Rutherford's.

Before 1917 the scientific teams from the Allied countries worked separately, however, after joining forces with French researchers, Boyle produced a working prototype of what the British called "ASDIC" (the first sonar).

Early versions of the technology were being installed on Royal Navy war ships just as the war came to an end.

In 1919 Boyle returned to Alberta and shortly thereafter became dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, a position he held until 1929. That year he joined the National Research Council of Canada as the director of physics, where he supervised research into radar during the Second World War.

He continued to work at the National Research Council until his retirement in 1948, when he moved back to England.

He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1921 and awarded the Flavelle Medal in 1940. He died in London, England, aged 71.

References

Robert William Boyle Wikipedia