The Award of the Frederic Ives Medal to Professor Nichols Source: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 29, No. 6 (Dec., 1929), pp. 571-574 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14859 . Accessed: 02/05/2014 01:28 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scientific Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.78.59 on Fri, 2 May 2014 01:28:36 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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The Award of the Frederic Ives Medal to Professor NicholsSource: The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 29, No. 6 (Dec., 1929), pp. 571-574Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/14859 .
Accessed: 02/05/2014 01:28
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And scientific research means more than its practical results in increased living comfort. The future of our na- tion is not merely a question of the development of our industries, of reduc- ing the cost of living, of multiplying our harvests or of larger leisure. We must constantly strengthen the fiber of na- tional life by the inculcation of that veracity of thought which springs from the search for truth. From its pursuit we shall discover the unfolding of beauty, we shall stimulate the aspiration for knowledge, we shall ever widen hu- man understanding.
Mr. Edison has given a long life to such service. Every American owes a debt to him. It is not alone a debt for
great benef actions he has brought to imankind, but also a debt for the honor he has brought to our country. Mr. Edison by his own genius and effort rose from modest beginnings to member- ship among the leaders of men. His life gives renewed confidence that our in- stitutions hold open the door of oppor- tunity to all those who would enter.
Our civilization is much like a garden. It is to be appraised by the quality of its blooms. In degree as we fertilize its soil with liberty, as we maintain dili- gence in cultivation and guardianship against destructive forces, do we then produce those blossoms, the fragrance of whose lives stimulates renewed en- deavor, gives to us the courage to re- newed effort and confidence of the future.
THE AWARD OF THE FREDERIC IVES MEDAL TO PROFESSOR NICHOLS
THE Optical Society of America at its recent meeting at Cornell University, October 24 to 26, awarded the Frederic Ives medal to Professor Edward L. Nichols, professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. This medal was en- dowed in 1928 by Dr. Herbert E. Ives, in honor of his father, Mr. Frederic Ives, distinguished for his pioneer con- tributions to color photography, photo- graving, three-color process printing and other branches of applied optics. It is awarded biennially for distinguished work in optics. Professor Nichols, one of the five honorary members of the Optical Society, is the first recipient of the medal. The presentation took place at a dinner arranged jointly by the Optical Society of America and the col- leagues of Professor Nichols on the faculty of Cornell University.
Professor Nichols' contributions to science and his activities in connection with American scientific societies are so well known as to require only passing comment. After receiving the B. S.
degree at Cornell in 1875, he studied successively in Leipzig, Berlin and Got- tingen, from which latter university he received the doctorate in 1879. He was a fellow at Hopkins in 1879-80, and for a short time thereafter was associated with Edison in the development of the' incandescent lamp, particularly with reference to photometric methods of measurements of candle-power.
After serving as professor of physics successively at the University of Ken- tucky and at the University of Kansas, Professor Nichols was called to his alma mater as professor of physics in 1887, which post he still holds, becoming pro- fessor emeritus in 1919.
During the period of thirty-two years from 1887 to 1919 while he was director of the department of physics at Cornell University, there passed through the de- partment a large number of graduate students and instructors who now hold positions of responsibility throughout the entire country. A large number of these returned to Cornell to attend the
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THE FREDERIC IVES MEDAL AWARDED TO PROFESSOR INICHOLS
physics conference and reunion upon the occasion of Professor Nichols' retire- ment as director in 1919.
Professor Nichols is a member of many scientific societies, including the National Academy of Sciences; the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science, of which he was presi- dent in 1907; the American Physical Society, of which he was president in 1907-09; Sigma Xi, of which he was national president in 1908. He was ac- tive in founding the American Physical Society and was instrumental in start- ing the Physical Review, the outstanding journal of physics in America.
His first paper was published in 1879. In the intervening fifty years there has been scarcely a year during which he has not published several papers, as the results of his own investigations and with various collaborators, in the fields of photometry, spectrophotometry and luminescence, to which latter subject he has devoted a very large proportion of his attention during the past twenty- five years. Although he became profes- sor emeritus ten years ago, he is still as busy as ever with his collaborators in the physics laboratory at Cornell Uni- versity extending his investigations in this important field.
With the assistance of Professor H. L. Howes and Mr. D. T. Wilber, Profes- sor Nichols published in 1928 a 350- page report of his work on cathodo- luminescence and the luminescence of incandescent solids, a field in which he has been at work for a number of years. This report is remarkable in several ways. It presents a vast amount of in- formation on this very complex subject on the basis of which, in due course, theories will doubtless be built. Of more significance, however, is the fact that a large part of this work has been either done by Professor Nichols person- ally or directed by him since his retire- ment from active service ten years ago. Indeed, it is one- of the great sources of inspiration to those of us who have had the great good fortune to be colleagues of Professor Nichols in the physics lab- oratory at Cornell University to see him maintain, even with increased vigor, his activities in research subsequent to his retirement. Many regard the accom- plishments of these last ten years as representing the best work of his long and distinguished career.
However much Professor Nichols is esteemed as a scientist by those who have worked with and under him or have watched his accomplishments from the
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outside, still more striking are his per- sonal qualities as seen by those who have had the rare privilege of knowing him as a man. His elementary lectures to undergraduates were always fascinating but many a student has stated that he carried away from the lecture room something far more valuable than the information so clearly imparted by this skilled teacher over the lecture table. There was about his lectures a quiet dignity, an unaffected simplicity, a re- spect for and a love of all knowledge, which could not but be infectious. Grad- uate students and the younger members of his staff have profited still more from these rare qualities of his by virtue of their closer contacts with him.
A single instance out of my own per- sonal experience will suffice to indicate the basis of the love and esteem with which Professor Nichols is regarded. When I came to Cornell as an untutored freshman I had a hazy notion that I wished to study electricity, and I made my way to the physics building for ad- vice. Upon entering the hall, the first person whom I saw was the man who, as I learned later, was head of the depart- meilt, Professor Nichols. I asked if I could find some one who could give me advice with regard to the courses of study which I should take in order to become acquainted with the field of
electricity. Instead of referring me to soine one else, he immediately, in the most kindly and unreserved yet digni- fied manner, asked me further about my plans and desires. His attitude was so sympathetic and so full of cordiality, yet without the slightest suggestion of condescension, that I was at once pos- sessed of a desire so to shape my under- graduate course as to come more directly into contact with this man. In a very few moments he outlined to me a course of study which I should follow-and which indeed I did follow almost with- out change. Further, he gave me, a student quite unknown to him, a cordial invitation to come to him at any time in connection with my course of study. Had I never met Professor Nichols again, those few moments would have stood out in my memory as among the most inspiring of a lifetime. But sub- sequent contacts in the department later as a graduate student, instructor and member of the staff have been even fuller of inspiration and encouragement.
Every one who has worked with or under Professor Nichols can relate similar instances-all of which serve to explain the veneration in which this great scientist and teacher is held by those who have been associated with him.
F. K. RICHTMYER
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