Charles Sumner Slichter (April 16, 1864 – October 4, 1946) was an

applied mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History One ...

and dean of the graduate school at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

. His most notable scholarly contribution focused on

hydrogeology Hydrogeology (''hydro-'' meaning water, and ''-geology'' meaning the study of the Earth) is the area of geology that deals with the distribution and movement of groundwater in the soil and rock (geology), rocks of the Earth's crust (ge ...

, where he developed a method of quantifying the velocity of ground-water underflow in river valleys. This method employed

ammonium chloride Ammonium chloride is an inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula , also written as . It is an ammonium salt of hydrogen chloride. It consists of ammonium cations and chloride anions . It is a white crystalline salt (chemistry), sal ...

that would be placed in an upstream, i.e., the upgradient,

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

and detected in three observation wells a short distance away, i.e., the downgradient."Early Stage of Hydrogeology in the United States" (excerpt from 200 years of Hydrogeology in the U.S.) Garald G. Parker Sr. ''Ground Water'' 26(2): 234–235, 1988

Family

Slichter was the husband of Mary Byrne Slichter and was the father of economist

Sumner Slichter Sumner Huber Slichter (January 8, 1892 – September 27, 1959) was an American economist and the first Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. An expert on unions and economic forecasting, he was well known to the public through his po ...

, geophysicist Louis B. Slichter, industrialist Allen Slichter, and businessman Donald Slichter, the grandfather of physicist

Charles Pence Slichter Charles Pence Slichter (January 21, 1924 – February 19, 2018) was an American physicist, best known for his work on nuclear magnetic resonance and superconductivity. He was awarded the 2007 National Medal of Science "for establishing nuclear ma ...

, and the great-grandfather of musician

Jacob Slichter Jacob Slichter (born Jacob Huber Slichter, April 5, 1961) is an American musician and academic, best known as the drummer for the rock band Semisonic. Early life Slichter, the son of physicist Charles Slichter, was born in Boston, Massachuse ...

Books

*''Galileo, 1642-1942: an essay commemorating the tercentenary of Galileo: read before a joint meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of Sigma Xi and the Dept. of Mathematics on November 17, 1942 ''
''Science in a Tavern: Essays and Diversions on Science in the Making''
University of Wisconsin Press, 1938 *''Four-place logarithmic tables for rapid computation'' arranged by Charles S. Slichter, New York: Macmillan & Co. (1906) *''The tidal and other problems'' (1909) *''Elementary mathematical analysis, a text book for first year college students'' (1914) *''Observations on the ground waters of Rio Grande Valley'' (1905) *''Field measurements of the rate of movement of underground waters'' (1905) *''The motions of underground waters'' (1902) *''The underflow in Arkansas Valley in western Kansas'' (1906) *''The underflow of the South Platte valley'' (1906) *''Theoretical investigation of the motion of ground waters'' (1899)

References

External links

* Hydrogeologists 1864 births 1946 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Cornell University alumni Northwestern University alumni People from Saint Paul, Minnesota {{US-geologist-stub