PHYSICIST

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

1842 - 1919

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John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ( RAY-lee; 12 November 1842 – 30 June 1919), was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904 "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies". He served as President of the Royal Society from 1905 to 1908 and as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1908 to 1919. Rayleigh provided the first theoretical treatment of the elastic scattering of light by particles much smaller than the light's wavelength, a phenomenon now known as "Rayleigh scattering", which notably explains why the sky is blue. He studied and described transverse surface waves in solids, now known as "Rayleigh waves". Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh is the 25th most popular physicist (up from 101st in 2019), the 69th most popular biography from United Kingdom (up from 273rd in 2019) and the 8th most popular British Physicist.

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh is most famous for his contributions to the fields of acoustics and optics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1904 for his discovery of argon.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ranks 25 out of 851. Before him are James Prescott Joule, Ernest Rutherford, Edward Victor Appleton, Werner Heisenberg, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, and Enrico Fermi. After him are Georg Ohm, Robert Hooke, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Owen Willans Richardson, and Ibn al-Haytham.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1842, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ranks 1. After him are Abdul Hamid II, Stéphane Mallarmé, William James, Peter Kropotkin, Jules Massenet, Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria, Alfred Marshall, Karl May, Dominic Savio, Josef Breuer, and Camille Flammarion. Among people deceased in 1919, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ranks 3. Before him are Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Rosa Luxemburg. After him are Emil Fischer, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernst Haeckel, Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Alfred Werner, Gojong of Korea, Karl Liebknecht, Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria, and Emiliano Zapata.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ranks 69 out of 8,785. Before him are William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824), David Hume (1711), Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859), James V of Scotland (1512), and Aleister Crowley (1875). After him are Edward the Black Prince (1330), Robert Hooke (1635), Lord Byron (1788), D. H. Lawrence (1885), John Maynard Keynes (1883), and Daniel Defoe (1660).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United Kingdom

Among physicists born in United Kingdom, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh ranks 8. Before him are Stephen Hawking (1942), Michael Faraday (1791), J. J. Thomson (1856), James Prescott Joule (1818), Edward Victor Appleton (1892), and William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824). After him are Robert Hooke (1635), Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869), Owen Willans Richardson (1879), James Clerk Maxwell (1831), William Gilbert (1544), and Nevill Francis Mott (1905).

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