William Duane (physicist)

Updated on Nov 04, 2023

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Nationality United States Known for Duane-Hunt law Influenced Alfred Lande Institutions Harvard University Influences Madame Curie Fields Physics		Alma mater Berlin University Name William Duane Awards Comstock Prize in Physics Doctoral advisor Walther Nernst Role Physicist

Born February 17, 1872 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ( 1872-02-17 ) Died March 7, 1935, United States of America Education Humboldt University of Berlin Similar People Marie Curie, Walther Nernst, Pierre Curie

William Duane (February 17, 1872, at Philadelphia – March 7, 1935, in Devon, Pennsylvania) was an American physicist. A coworker of Marie Curie, he developed a method for generating quantities of radon in the laboratory.

Studies

1888-1892 University of Pennsylvania

1892-1895 Harvard University

1895 Universities of Göttingen (as a Tyndall Fellow)

1895-1897 Berlin

doctor father: Max Planck

Academic career

1898-1907 professor at the University of Colorado Boulder

1908-1913 at the laboratory of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris

1913-1917 assistant professor of physics at Harvard University

1917-1934 professor of biophysics at Harvard University

research activities

radioactivity

X-ray spectroscopy, Duane-Hunt law, relating the minimum wavelength of X-rays to the threshold voltage of the cathode rays that excite them; and Duane's hypothesis of quantized translative momemtum transfer.

Death

Starting in 1925, Duane began suffering a continual decline in health brought on by diabetes. This culminated in his death on 7 March 1935 due to his second paralytic stroke.

Honours and awards

The physics department building in the University of Colorado Boulder is named after him. In 1923 Duane was awarded the Comstock Prize in Physics from the National Academy of Sciences.

References

William Duane (physicist) Wikipedia

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