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Charles Boys
Times obituary
EXPERIMENTAL SKILL IN PHYSICS
Sir Charles Vernon Boys, LL.D., F.R.S., who died yesterday at St. Mary Bourne, Andover, was a physicist distinguished for his experimental skill and his ability in the construction of delicate yet accurate measuring instruments.
Born at Wing, Rutland, on March 15, 1855, he was educated at Marlborough, and in the dedication of his book on "Soap Bubbles" he expressed his obligations to Mr. G. F. Rodwell, the first science master appointed at the school. From 1873 to 1876 he studied at the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, and in 1881 he became a demonstrator at the Royal College of Science, where from 1889 he was assistant professor of physics. He was appointed one of the Metropolitan Gas Referees in 1897
Boys was well known for his work on quartz fibers, discovering how to draw them in practically any degree of fineness and utilizing their torsion for the measurement of extremely small forces. One application he made of such fibers was to the suspension of the moving system of his radiomicrometer for the measurement of radiant heat, an instrument so sensitive that, aided by a reflecting telescope to bring the heat to a focus, it could detect the differences in the radiation from different parts of the moon's dise and would respond to the heat from a candle at a distance of more than a mile, though it gave no indications when the telescope was directed even to the brightest stars. He also made use of quartz fibers in his repetition of Cavendish's famous experiment for the determination of the gravitational constant Here the torsion rod consisted of a small mirror suspended by a quartz fiber, and from the sides of the mirror, the movement of which was reflected upon a distant scale, were hung by fibers of the same material, the small gold balls, the attraction of which was measured by large lead spheres. His determination ranks as one of the best ever made.
Another subject to which he devoted a great deal of attention was the photography of light-ning flashes and of rapidly moving objects, such as bullets, and soap films provided him with a study in which his powers of delicate manipulation found full scope, his book on "Soap Bubbles, Their Colors, and the Forces which Mould Them," being a classic in its way. A calorimeter which he described to the Royal Society in 1905 was adopted as the standard instrument for testing London gas after the passing of the London Gas Act in 1906, and when the Gas Regulation Act of 1920 introduced the method of charging for town's gas according to the amount of heat it will produce when burned, he devoted himself to the construction of another ingenious form of apparatus which gives a continuous record of the heating value of the gas
An early member of the Physical Society, from which he received the Duddell Medal in 1925, he served successively as secretary and president. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1888 and was awarded a Royal Medal in 1896 and the Rumford Medal in 1924, while he was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1939. In 1903 he was president of Section A, Mathematics and Physics, of the British Association at its Southport meeting. He received a knighthood in 1935. In addition to writing the book on "Soap Bubbles" already mentioned and many scientific papers, he edited and completed a volume on dynamometers by the late Rev. F. J. Jervis-Smith. Early in 1939 he published a second edition of a little book on the eradication of garden weeds
He married Marion Amelia, daughter of Henry Pollock, in 1892. The marriage was dissolved in 1910. His son, Mr. Geoffrey Vernon Boys, was appointed secretary of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1936.
EXPERIMENTAL SKILL IN PHYSICS
Sir Charles Vernon Boys, LL.D., F.R.S., who died yesterday at St. Mary Bourne, Andover, was a physicist distinguished for his experimental skill and his ability in the construction of delicate yet accurate measuring instruments.
Born at Wing, Rutland, on March 15, 1855, he was educated at Marlborough, and in the dedication of his book on "Soap Bubbles" he expressed his obligations to Mr. G. F. Rodwell, the first science master appointed at the school. From 1873 to 1876 he studied at the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, and in 1881 he became a demonstrator at the Royal College of Science, where from 1889 he was assistant professor of physics. He was appointed one of the Metropolitan Gas Referees in 1897
Boys was well known for his work on quartz fibers, discovering how to draw them in practically any degree of fineness and utilizing their torsion for the measurement of extremely small forces. One application he made of such fibers was to the suspension of the moving system of his radiomicrometer for the measurement of radiant heat, an instrument so sensitive that, aided by a reflecting telescope to bring the heat to a focus, it could detect the differences in the radiation from different parts of the moon's dise and would respond to the heat from a candle at a distance of more than a mile, though it gave no indications when the telescope was directed even to the brightest stars. He also made use of quartz fibers in his repetition of Cavendish's famous experiment for the determination of the gravitational constant Here the torsion rod consisted of a small mirror suspended by a quartz fiber, and from the sides of the mirror, the movement of which was reflected upon a distant scale, were hung by fibers of the same material, the small gold balls, the attraction of which was measured by large lead spheres. His determination ranks as one of the best ever made.
Another subject to which he devoted a great deal of attention was the photography of light-ning flashes and of rapidly moving objects, such as bullets, and soap films provided him with a study in which his powers of delicate manipulation found full scope, his book on "Soap Bubbles, Their Colors, and the Forces which Mould Them," being a classic in its way. A calorimeter which he described to the Royal Society in 1905 was adopted as the standard instrument for testing London gas after the passing of the London Gas Act in 1906, and when the Gas Regulation Act of 1920 introduced the method of charging for town's gas according to the amount of heat it will produce when burned, he devoted himself to the construction of another ingenious form of apparatus which gives a continuous record of the heating value of the gas
An early member of the Physical Society, from which he received the Duddell Medal in 1925, he served successively as secretary and president. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1888 and was awarded a Royal Medal in 1896 and the Rumford Medal in 1924, while he was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 1939. In 1903 he was president of Section A, Mathematics and Physics, of the British Association at its Southport meeting. He received a knighthood in 1935. In addition to writing the book on "Soap Bubbles" already mentioned and many scientific papers, he edited and completed a volume on dynamometers by the late Rev. F. J. Jervis-Smith. Early in 1939 he published a second edition of a little book on the eradication of garden weeds
He married Marion Amelia, daughter of Henry Pollock, in 1892. The marriage was dissolved in 1910. His son, Mr. Geoffrey Vernon Boys, was appointed secretary of the Institution of Naval Architects in 1936.
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