William Ralph Bennett Jr. (January 30, 1930 – June 29, 2008) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

known for his pioneering work on gas

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

. He spent most of his career on the faculty of

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

Career

The son of the noted physicist William R. Bennett Sr., Bennett Jr. received his bachelor's degree in physics from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

. Bennett's graduate work in physics was on spectroscopy and collisions of the second kind in the

noble gas The noble gases (historically also the inert gases; sometimes referred to as aerogens) make up a class of chemical elements with similar properties; under standard conditions, they are all odorless, colorless, monatomic gases with very low che ...

es. He received his Ph.D. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

. Bennett became a tenured professor at

in 1962 and retired in 2000. He and

Ali Javan Ali Javan ( fa, علی جوان, Ali Javān; December 26, 1926 – September 12, 2016) was an Iranian-American physicist and inventor. He was the first to propose the concept of the gas laser in 1959 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. A successf ...

co-invented the first gas laser (the helium-neon laser) at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

Murray Hill, New Jersey Murray Hill is an unincorporated community located within portions of both Berkeley Heights and New Providence, located in Union County in northern New Jersey, United States. It is the longtime central location of Bell Labs (part of Nokia ...

. He discovered the argon ion laser, was first to observe spectral hole burning effects in gas lasers, and created a theory of hole burning effects on laser oscillation. He was co-discoverer of lasers using electron impact excitation in each of the noble gases, dissociative excitation transfer in the neon-oxygen laser (the first chemical laser), and collision excitation in several metal vapor lasers. He was one of the first to incorporate the use of computers to teach physics and, with his daughter Dr.

Jean Bennett Jean Bennett is the F. M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on gene therapy for retinal diseases. Her laboratory developed the first FDA approved gene ther ...

, devised a method of real-time spectral

phonocardiography A phonocardiogram (or PCG) is a plot of high-fidelity recording of the sounds and murmurs made by the heart with the help of the machine called the phonocardiograph; thus, phonocardiography is the recording of all the sounds made by the hear ...

for the detection and classification of

heart murmurs Heart murmurs are unique heart sounds produced when blood flows across a heart valve or blood vessel. This occurs when turbulent blood flow creates a sound loud enough to hear with a stethoscope. Turbulent blood flow is not smooth. The sound diff ...

. He set a stringent limit on the existence of “The Fifth Force” and showed that it was improbable that

magnetic field A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and t ...

s from power lines could cause

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bl ...

. He wrote eight books, held twelve patents and published over 120 research papers. He received the 1965

IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award The initially called Morris Liebmann Memorial Prize provided by the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), the IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award was created in 1919 in honor of Colonel Morris N. Liebmann. It was initially given to awardees who h ...

. His research on the physics of musical instruments became the basis of a popular course he gave at Yale. His principal

avocation An avocation is an activity that someone engages in as a hobby outside their main occupation. There are many examples of people whose professions were the ways that they made their livings, but for whom their activities outside their workplaces w ...

was playing chamber music. He studied the clarinet with Simeon Bellison and performed as a clarinet soloist with several amateur symphony orchestras. His son

William Bennett William John Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office o ...

was a professional oboist.

Honors

* Member of

Sigma Xi Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society () is a highly prestigious, non-profit honor society for scientists and engineers. Sigma Xi was founded at Cornell University by a junior faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 ...

* Fellow of the American Physical Society; the Optical Society of America, and the IEEE; * Listed in A Century of Honor (IEEE Press). * 1947 –

Stanley Silverman Stanley Silverman (born July 5, 1938, in New York City) is an American composer, arranger, conductor and guitarist. Silverman's diverse career covers music theatre, film, television, classical and pop music. His work has featured on stages acros ...

Prize in Chemistry * 1963 – Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow * 1964 – Honorary MA, Yale University * 1965 –

(for the invention of the gas laser) * 1967 – J. S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellow * 1972 – C. B. Sawyer Chair, Yale University * 1974, 1975, 1976 – Annual "Ten Best Teachers" award, Yale Student Course Critique * 1974 – Fellow, IEEE ("for contributions to the realization and understanding of gas lasers") * 1975 – Honorary D.Sc., University of New Haven * 1977 – Western Electric Fund Award of the ASME ("for excellence in instruction of engineering students") * 1977 – Outstanding Patent Award of the Research and Development Council of New Jersey for U.S.Patent No. 3614653 (for the first gas laser) * 1987 – John F. Enders Research Fellow * 1994 – Eli Whitney Award of Connecticut Patent Law Association (for the invention of spectral phonocardiograph.) * 1997 – Life Fellow, IEEE * 2000 – DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching at Yale University,

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

Patents

* " ulsed Helium-NeonGas Optical Maser" (with A. Javan), U. S. Patent No. 3149290 (granted Sept. 15, 1964) * " issociative TransferGas Optical Maser" (with A. Javan), U. S. Patent No. 3159707 (granted Dec. 1, 1964) * "Frequency Stabilized Optical Maser ased on Spectral Hole-burning, U. S. Patent No. 3172057 (granted Feb. 16, 1965) * " igh PowerGaseous Optical Maser", U. S. Patent No. 3172057 (granted March 2, 1965) * "Optical Maser Employing Multiple Gases rypton, Xenon and Radon with Helium (with W. L. Faust, R. A. McFarlane and C. K. N.Patel, U. S. Patent No. 3278858 (granted Oct. 11, 1966) * "Laser Utilizing Collision Depopulation

f the Lower Level F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hi ...

(with G. Gould), U. S. Patent No. 3562662 (Granted Feb. 9, 1971) * "Low-Level Laser with Cyclic Excitation opper, Manganese, etc., metal vapor lasers (with Gordon Gould and W. T. Walter), U. S. Patent No. 3576500 (granted April 27, 1971) * "

w Helium-Neon W, or w, is the twenty-third and fourth-to-last letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. It represents a consonant, but in some languages i ...

Optical Maser" (with D. R. Herriott and A. Javan), U. S. Patent No.3614653 (granted Oct. 19, 1971) * "Method and Device for Compensating for Partial Hearing Loss", U. S. Patent No. 4868880 (granted Sept. 19, 1989) * "Dynamic Spectral Phonocardiograph" (with J. B. Maguire), U. S. Patent No. 4967760 (granted Nov. 6, 1990). * "Dynamic Spectral Phonocardiograph

sing Computer Diagnostics Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music ( arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or ...

(with J. B. Maguire), U.S.Patent No. 5012815 (granted May 7, 1991). * "Laser with Reduced Intensity Fluctuations" ("Laser Stabilitron" with V. P. Chebotayev), U. S. Patent No.5251229 (Oct. 5, 1993).

Books

* 1964 – Gas Lasers (Moscow, Izdattel'stvo "MIR"), translated into Russian by S. G. Rautian and A. S. Khaikin * 1965 – Chemical Lasers, (Editor with K. Schuler) (Applied Optics Supplement No. 2, Optical Soc. of Amer., Washington, DC) * 1976 – Introduction to Computer Applications for Non-Science Students, (Prentice-Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, N.J.) * 1976 – Scientific and Engineering Problem Solving with the Computer, (Prentice-Hall, Englewood-Cliffs, N.J.) * 1977 – The Physics of Gas Lasers, (Gordon and Breach, London) * 1979 – Atomic Gas Laser Transition Data (Plenum Publishing Company, New York) * 1994 – Health and Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (Yale University Press, New Haven)

References

External links