William Duane was an American physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

. A coworker of Marie Curie

Marie Curie

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...

, he developed a method for generating quantities of radon

Radon

Radon is a chemical element with symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, occurring naturally as the decay product of uranium or thorium. Its most stable isotope, 222Rn, has a half-life of 3.8 days...

 in the laboratory.

Biography

Studies

• 1888-1892 University of Pennsylvania
• 1892-1895 Harvard University
• 1895 Universities of Göttingen (as a Tyndall Fellow)
• 1895-1897 Berlin

doctor father: Max Planck

Academic career

• 1898-1907 professor at the University of Colorado
• 1908-1913 at the laboratory of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris
• 1913-1917 assistant professor of physicsat Harvard University
• 1917-1934 professor of biophysics at Harvard University

research activities

• radioactivity
• X-ray spectroscopy, Duane-Hunt law, relating the minimum wavelength of X-rays to the threshold voltage of the cathode rays that excite them.

Death

Starting in 1925, Duane began suffering a continual decline in health brought on by diabetes. This culminated in his death on 7 March 1935 due to his second paralytic stroke.

Honours and awards

The physics department building in the University of Colorado at Boulder

University of Colorado at Boulder

The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...

 is named after him. In 1923 Duane was awarded the Comstock Prize in Physics

Comstock Prize in Physics

The Comstock Prize in Physics is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for recent innovative discovery or investigation in electricity, magnetism, or radiant energy, broadly interpreted."...

 from the National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

.

External links

• Biography/Bibliography by Nobel Laureate P.W. Bridgman
• Britannica article on Duane-Hunt law
• Duane's "Radon Cow" described
• The Birth of Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation: Blumgart and Yens, 1925 -- Patton 44 (8): 1362 -- The Journal of Nuclear Medicine
• Outline of history of nuclear medicine
• The Transfer in Quanta of Radiation Momentum to Matter -- Duane 9 (5): 158 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Discussion of Duane's quantum theory of diffraction in History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science by Thomas J. Hickey with free downloads