Curtis Judson Humphreys (17 February 1898 - November 1986) was an American physicist born in Alliance, Ohio

Alliance, Ohio

Alliance is a city in Stark and Mahoning counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 22,322 at the 2010 census. Alliance's nickname is "The Carnation City", and the city is home to the University of Mount Union....

, USA. He was chief of the Radiometry Section of the U.S. Navy during the 1940s. He is famous for discovering the Humphreys series of the hydrogen atom.

Biography

Humphreys married Jeanette Mae Raum, with whom he had a son Richard.

He was involved in the Spectroscopic Program covering the NBS and U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory, Corona, CA, experiences. His inventions significantly advanced the techniques of radiometry

Radiometry

In optics, radiometry is a set of techniques for measuring electromagnetic radiation, including visible light. Radiometric techniques characterize the distribution of the radiation's power in space, as opposed to photometric techniques, which characterize the light's interaction with the human eye...

 and spectrophotometry

Spectrophotometry

In chemistry, spectrophotometry is the quantitative measurement of the reflection or transmission properties of a material as a function of wavelength...

. He credited the Corona Lab program with the establishment of the atomic wavelength standard in the infrared.

Humphreys attended the Rydberg Centennial Conference on Atomic Spectroscopy in 1954, which at the time was the most distinguished group of spectroscopic and atomic physicists ever assembled, and included the eminent Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...

.

He corresponded with William F. Meggers while in Michigan in 1928.

Awards and Accomplishments

• He received the Naval Award for Achievement in Science.
• He was awarded the William F. Meggers Award in 1973.
• He was listed in "World Who's Who in Science" in 1968.

Works

Humphreys is the author of many scientific research articles and books including First spectra of neon, argon, and xenon 136 in the 1.2-4.0 µm region, written in 1973 while he was at Purdue University

Purdue University

Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...

, Lafayette, Indiana.

Other works include:

• T.L.De Bruin, C.J.Humphreys, and W.F.Meggers, J. Res. NBS (U.S.) 11, 409 (1933).
• "The 29 and 30 electron-system spectra of arsenic and selenium" Curtis J Humphreys, 1928.
• "Element Ne I" Meggers, W. F., and Humphreys, C. J. 1933, J. Res. N. B. S. 10, 427. [EA, 7724-18549, a UMT and RMTsource] C.J.Humphreys, J. Res. NBS (U.S.) 22, 19 (1939). C.J.Humphreys, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 43, 1027 (1953).
• "Humphreys Series" Humphreys, C.J., J. Research Natl. Bur. Standards 1953, 50, 1.
• "Interferometric measurement of wavelengths of infrared atomic emission lines in the extraphotographic region" Applied Optics, 1963. Co-authored Rao, K. Narahari;
• Curtis J. Humphreys; D.H. Rank, "Wavelength Standards in the Infrared" ,Academic Press, 1966.
• Humphreys, C. J., & Paul, E. 1970, J. Opt. Soc. Am., 60, 1302.
• H.H. Li and C.J. Humphreys and J. Opt. Soc. Am. 64 (1974) 1072.
• C.J. Humphreys, Rep. Prog. Phys. 42 (1979) 122.

External links

• Photo of Curtis J. Humphreys
• "First spectra of neon, argon, and xenon 136 in the 1.2-4.0 µm region"