Arthur Holly Compton

Physicist

• Born: September 10, 1892
• Birthplace: Wooster, Ohio
• Died: March 15, 1962
• Place of death: Berkeley, California

American physicist

American physicist Arthur Holly Compton described the particle nature of light and measured the change in wavelength of a quantum of radiation as it collides with an electron. This discovery, known as the Compton effect, earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927.

Born: September 10, 1892; Wooster, Ohio

Died: March 15, 1962; Berkeley, California

Primary field: Physics

Specialties: Theoretical physics; particle physics; quantum mechanics

Early Life

Arthur Holly Compton was born on September 10, 1892, in Wooster, Ohio. He was one of four children born into an intellectual family; his father, Elias Compton, was a Presbyterian minister, professor of philosophy and psychology, and dean of the College of Wooster. In his youth, Compton studied paleontology and astronomy and collected butterflies. As a teenager, he published articles on aeronautics, built a working glider, constructed an astronomical clock for a telescope, and took photographs of Halley’s Comet.

Compton attended the College of Wooster, where he built and patented a gyroscope for airplanes. He planned to be a mechanical engineer, but through his brother Karl’s influence, he became interested in physics and mathematics. While in college, Compton was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa for his outstanding academic achievement.

Compton completed his graduate studies at Princeton University, receiving his doctorate in physics, summa cum laude, in 1916 for his dissertation on the interaction of X-rays and matter. Soon after graduation, Compton married Betty Charity McCloskey. They later had two sons, Arthur Alan and John Joseph.

Compton taught physics at the University of Minnesota for a year before taking a job in the private sector. For the next two years, he worked as a research engineer for Westinghouse Lamp Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Compton began to design aircraft instruments for the military. He also continued to research X-rays at Westinghouse.

Life’s Work

Following the end of the war, in 1919, Compton accepted a fellowship from the National Research Council. This award enabled him to work with Ernest Rutherford, a physicist from New Zealand, at Cambridge University’s Cavendish Laboratory in England. During his year at Cambridge, Compton observed Rutherford’s early attempts to split the atom. Compton was also able to study gamma rays, or radioactive X-rays, during this period. He observed that scattered rays were more easily absorbed by matter than were the primary rays used to bombard the target. At the time, physics had no explanation for this phenomenon.

Upon his return to the United States, Compton became a physics professor and then head of the physics department at Washington University in St. Louis. Three years later, he accepted a position as professor of physics at the University of Chicago. He would remain at Chicago in various capacities for more than twenty years.

During these early years of research, Compton found that when X-rays were scattered by graphite, some of the radiation produced retained the same wavelength as the primary rays, but other rays had a longer wave. This became known as the Compton effect. He published his findings in the monograph Secondary Radiation Produced by X-rays (1922) as well as in X-rays and Electrons (1926). For his discovery of the Compton effect, Compton received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927, sharing the prize with Charles T. R. Wilson. The same year, Compton received the Rumford Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

At this time, Compton’s research focused on cosmic rays. He directed a three-year worldwide survey, taking his wife and children with him to mountain peaks on various continents, where he measured the variation of the rays’ intensity according to latitude and altitude. As a result of the survey, Compton was able to demonstrate that cosmic rays are largely charged particles and are affected by the Earth’s magnetic field.

In 1932, Compton made his conclusions public at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A disagreement ensued between Compton and American physicist Robert Millikan, who insisted that cosmic rays were mostly photons (electrically inert bundles of radiation). The dispute was not settled until 1936, when Compton published all of his research. This was accepted by the scientific community as vindication of his conclusions. Compton later made a high-altitude flight to photograph cosmic rays.

Compton served as a leading proponent of compatibility between science and religion during this period, arguing in The Freedom of Man (1935) that discoveries in atomic physics and the complexity of the atom support the religious idea that the universe was created by a higher intelligence. He went on to publish several other works on the relationship between science and religion, including The Religion of a Scientist (1938) and The Human Meaning of Science (1940).

In 1940, Compton received the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute for his role in advancing knowledge in physical science. The following year, Compton was asked to direct the production of plutonium for the Manhattan Project, the US nuclear weapons development program during World War II. Along with Italian physicist Enrico Fermi and others, Compton helped build the first nuclear reactor; in December 1942, the team achieved the first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago. Compton’s book Atomic Quest, published in 1956, tells the story of the Manhattan Project and the motives of the scientists who worked to develop the atomic bomb. It also discusses numerous ethical questions relating to the use of nuclear weapons and outlines many of his ideas on the relation of science and religion.

After World War II, Compton accepted the position of chancellor at Washington University. He served as a member of the President’s Commission on Higher Education for two years, and in 1946 and 1947, he represented the United States at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) meetings in Paris and in Mexico. From 1946 to 1953, Compton was a member of the Naval Research Advisory Committee, and he served as civilian aide to the secretary of the Army in 1952 and 1953. He belonged to the National Cancer Advisory Board and was cochair of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

In 1953, Compton resigned the chancellorship of Washington University but remained with the university as a distinguished service professor of natural philosophy. He retired from the position in 1961, intending to divide his time among Washington University, the College of Wooster and the University of California at Berkeley. Compton died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 15, 1962, in Berkeley. He was sixty-nine years old.

Impact

Throughout his life, Compton was an important member of the international physics community. He was known not only for studying physics but also for serving as a leader of American physicists, particularly during World War II, and publicly expressing his deep concerns about the relationships among science, society, and religion. His discovery of the Compton effect greatly influenced later developments in the field of physics, while his work for the US government during World War II had far-reaching consequences on a global scale. In recognition of his various accomplishments, Compton received the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of London, among other awards, and was awarded honorary degrees from at least twenty colleges and universities, including Harvard and Yale.

Bibliography

Compton, Arthur Holly. Scientific Papers of Arthur Holly Compton: X-Rays and Other Studies. Ed. Robert S. Shankland. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1973. Print. Collects papers from throughout Compton’s career related to his study of X-rays, quantum theory, the Compton effect, and similar topics.

---. “Scientists Will Be Held Responsible.” The Manhattan Project: The Birth of the Atomic Bomb in the Words of Its Creators. Ed. Cynthia C. Kelly. New York: Black Dog, 2007. Print. Explores Compton’s feelings and concerns about the atomic bomb and the US weapons development program.

Kumar, Manjit. Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality. New York: Norton, 2010. Print. Places Compton’s work within scientific and historical context and explores the influence of his experiments on later research.