Carl Barus (February 19, 1856 – September 20, 1935) was an American physicist and the maternal great-uncle of the American novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Barus was born in

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. The son of German immigrants (the musician Carl Barus, Sr. and Sophia, ''nee'' Möllmann) graduated from Woodward High School, together with

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...

, in 1874. After studying

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for two years, he moved to Würzburg,

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, where he studied physics under Friedrich Kohlrausch, and graduated summa cum laude in 1879. Barus married Annie Gertrude Howes on January 20, 1887. They had two children, Maxwell and Deborah. In the

in 1892, he was a member of the

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, and the youngest of all members to National Academy of Sciences. In 1903 he was appointed as a dean of the

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Graduate Department, which he was controlling from his office in

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. He remained the dean of the graduate school until his retirement in 1926. By that time, the department had grown large enough to become a school within the university which has been attributed to his many contributions. In 1905 he was a corresponding member of Britain and the same year became a member of the First International Congress of Radiology and Electricity at

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. The same year, he became a member of the Physikalisch-Medizinische Sozietät at

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. Also, the same year he became the fourth president of

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, and in 1906, became a member on the advisory board of physics, at the Carnegie Institution of

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state.Biography
/ref> Barus died in

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References

External links

*
Biographical Memoir of Carl Barus 1856-1935
' (1941) by

Robert Bruce Lindsay Robert Bruce Lindsay (1 January 1900 – 2 March 1985) was an American physicist and physics professor, known for his prolific authorship of physics books in acoustics, and historical and philosophical analyses of physics. Biography R(obert) ...

, presented to the National Academy of Sciences at the Autumn meeting.
Biography
from

*
Moellmann family papers
Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
Carl Barus Papers
fro
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
;

Smithsonian Institution Archives Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Instituti ...

Carl Barus (1856-1935)

Carl Barus Papers, 1891, 1893
1856 births 1935 deaths American people of German descent American physicists Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Scientists from Cincinnati Woodward High School (Cincinnati, Ohio) alumni {{Physicist-stub Brown University faculty Presidents of the American Physical Society