Frederick Eugene Wright

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frederick Eugene Wright (born October 16, 1877 in Marquette , Michigan , † August 25, 1953 in Sagastaweka , Canada) was an American mineralogist, geophysicist and optics specialist.

Wright, whose father was Charles Wright geologist in the public service (he died in 1888), went with his mother and his brother in 1895 to Germany, went to Weimar to high school and studied at the University of Heidelberg , where he at Harry Rosenbusch and Victor Moritz Goldschmidt studied and received his doctorate in 1900 ( summa cum laude ). Upon his return, he taught at Michigan College of Mines, Houghton for two years and then went to the US Geological Survey. He then mapped for three years in Alaska, where he was supposed to explore coal deposits in particular. He was accompanied by his brother as an assistant. In 1906 he went to the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC, where he stayed for the remainder of his career until his retirement in 1944. In the summer months of 1907/8 he continued his father's geological investigations and his own earlier investigations in Michigan, about which he published in 1908.

At the geophysical laboratory, he initially dealt with the effects of temperature increases on the crystal structure of quartz ( Quartz as a geologic thermometer , with Esper S. Larsen ) and was an early advocate of the use of microscopy in petrography in the USA and developed its technology further . For example, he introduced the immersion method at the geophysical laboratory. He also applied microscopic techniques to applied problems, such as studying portland cement. For the Tiffany company he developed a test device that differentiated real pearls from artificial ones. In 1929 he developed a portable gravimeter for field measurements (he had been working on the development since 1922). In 1928 he undertook gravity measurements in collaboration with Felix Andries Vening-Meinesz from a submarine in the Caribbean.

In 1928 he was on field studies with Molengraaff and Reginald A. Daly and Charles Palache in South Africa, where he examined in particular the Stromberg plateau basalts. He then continued his studies of basalt traps on the Columbia River in the USA.

He dealt with the military use of optical glass and coordinated its production in the USA during World War I, for which he had to do development work himself. In the Second World War he was also called in as an optics expert by the US government. In 1945 he received the Army Gold Medal for his services. Later he dealt with the surface of the moon, for which he investigated the properties of reflected light, for example with the telescope of the Mount Wilson Observatory (from 1928 to the early 1940s). At that time he was considered one of the leading experts on the moon in the USA.

Wright was President of the Optical Society of America and in 1941 President of the Mineralogical Society of America and Vice President of the Geological Society of America . He was an honorary member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland since 1950 , a member of the American Philosophical Society since 1914, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences since 1923 (of which he was home secretary for twenty years from 1931 to 1951 and its vice-president from 1927 to 1931) , the American Association for the Advancement of Science and, since 1915, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1951 his doctorate was renewed in Heidelberg. In 1952 he received the Roebling Medal .

He had been married since 1909 and had three sons and a daughter.

The lunar crater Wright is named after him as well as after William Hammond Wright and after Thomas Wright .

Fonts

  • The methods of petrographic-microscopic research: their relative accuracy and range of application, 1911

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wright The Manufacture of Optical Glass and Optical Systems , Army Ordnance Department, United States Government Printing Office , 1921
  2. ^ Member History: Frederick E. Wright. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 11, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Wright, Frederick Eugene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mineralogist
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Marquette , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1953
Place of death Sagastaweka