Ernest Fox Nichols

Ernest Fox Nichols ( born June 1, 1869 Leavenworth County, Kansas, † April 29, 1924 ) was an American teacher and physicist who is best known for the experimental detection of the radiation pressure.

Life

Ernest Nichols received in 1888 his first academic degree at Kansas State University. After he spent a year working in the field of chemistry, he enrolled at Cornell University, where he earned 1893 and 1897 more degrees. He also studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Cambridge.

Nichols worked as a professor of physics at Cambridge University from 1892-1898, at Dartmouth College from 1898-1903, and at Columbia University from 1903 to 1909. After that Nichols was the 10th President of Dartmouth College from 1909-1916, from 1916 professor of physics at Yale University, and the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ) By 1921 up to 1923. He was also elected Vice President of the National Academy of sciences.

Especially famous was Nichols, as he proved in 1903 with Gordon Ferrie Hull as one of the first radiation pressure experimentally. But he also received the Rumford Prize in 1905.

Bibliography

• EF Nichols, GF Hull: About radiation pressure. In: Annals of Physics. 12, 1903, pp. 225-263.