William Duane (physicist)

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

William Duane
Born	(1872-02-17)February 17, 1872 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	March 7, 1935(1935-03-07) (aged 63) Devon, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Berlin University
Known for	Duane-Hunt law Duane's hypothesis
Awards	Comstock Prize in Physics (1923)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Walther Nernst
Influences	Madame Curie
Influenced	Alfred Landé

Biography

Display about Duane at the University of Colorado Boulder

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 momentum 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. He was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[1]

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[2] for his work on "relations of fundamental significance...in their bearings upon modern theories of the structure of matter and on the mechanism of radiation."[3]

Selected publications

• Duane, William (1905). "Sur l'ionisation de l'air en présence de l'émanation du radium". Journal de Physique Théorique et Appliquée. 4 (1): 605–619. doi:10.1051/jphystap:019050040060500. ISSN 0368-3893.

• Duane, William (1905). "Sur l'ionization produite entre les plateaux paralleles par l'émanation du radium". Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. 140: 786–788.

• Duane, William; Hunt, Franklin L. (1915). "On X-Ray Wave-Lengths". Physical Review. 6 (2): 166–172. Bibcode:1915PhRv....6..166.. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.6.166.

• Duane, William (1915). "On the Extraction and Purification of Radium Emanation". Physical Review. 5 (4): 311–314. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.5.311. ISSN 0031-899X.

References

1. "William Duane". www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
2. "Comstock Prize in Physics". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
3. del Regato, Juan A. (1985). "Chapter VI: William Duane". Radiological Physicists. American Institute of Physics. pp. 65–75. ISBN 978-0-88318-469-1.

Further reading

• Bridgeman, P. W. (1937). "Biographical Memoir of William Duane (1872-1935)" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 18: 23–41.
• Forman, Paul (1981). "Duane, William". In Charles Coulson Gillespie (ed.). Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 4. Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 194–197. ISBN 0-684-16964-9.

External links

• Britannica article on Duane-Hunt law
• Duane's "Radon Cow" described
• The Birth of Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation: Blumgart and Yens, 1925 -- Patton 44 (8): 1362 -- The Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• The Transfer in Quanta of Radiation Momentum to Matter -- Duane 9 (5): 158 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences