Edgar Buckingham
Edgar Buckingham (born July 8, 1867 in Philadelphia , † April 29, 1940 in Washington, DC ) was an American physicist and soil mechanic .
plant
Buckingham graduated from Harvard University in 1887 with a degree in physics . He also studied in Strasbourg and Leipzig with Wilhelm Ostwald and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Leipzig in 1893 .
He worked from 1902 to 1906 in the US Department of Agriculture (United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA) as soil mechanics and 1907-1937 at the US national standard authority NBS (now National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST). His fields of activity included soil physics , gas properties, acoustics , fluid mechanics and thermal radiation . He is also the founder of the Pi theorem in the field of dimensional analysis .
Buckingham was first concerned with floor ventilation, especially the loss of carbon dioxide and its subsequent recovery by oxygen. The result of his experiments was that the diffusion does not depend significantly on the soil structure and on the density or the water content of the soil. Using an empirical formula based on his data, Buckingham was able to give the diffusion constant as a function of the air content. His research into gas transport showed that the exchange of gases in ground ventilation is based on diffusion and is independent of changes in atmospheric pressure .
Buckingham's work Studies on the movement of soil moisture was published through the USDA in 1907 . This document has three sections. The first deals with the evaporation of water below a layer of soil. Buckingham found that the soil, depending on its nature, can greatly inhibit evaporation, especially in the capillaries of the uppermost layers. The second section looks at the desiccation of the soil under drier and moist conditions. The third section contains essential connections about capillary activity . Buckingham first recognized the importance of the adhesive forces between soil and water. These relationships were later used as relative permeability in petroleum technology.
In 1927 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society .
Life
- 1893 teaching in inorganic chemistry and physics at Bryn Mawr University
- 1897–1899 writing a thermodynamics textbook
- 1901 marriage to Elizabeth Holsteiner in Texas
- 1901 teaching position in physics at the University of Wisconsin
- 1902–1906 worked for the USDA Soil Authority, writing two publications on the dynamics of gas and water in the soil.
- 1907 work at the national standards authority (NBS)
- 1923 Status as the first independent NBS researcher (released from all administrative tasks)
- 1937 After he officially resigned from the NBS at the age of 70, he nevertheless continued his research.
literature
- JR Nimmo, ER Landa: The soil physics contributions of Edgar Buckingham . In: Soil Science Society of America Journal . tape 69 , no. 2 , 2005, p. 328-342 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ APS Fellow Archive. American Physical Society, accessed November 26, 2015 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Buckingham, Edgar |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist and soil mechanic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 8, 1867 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Philadelphia |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 29, 1940 |
| Place of death | Washington, DC |