Bergen Davis (March 31, 1869 – June 30, 1958) 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 cau ...

and a professor at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Davis was born March 31, 1869, near

Whitehouse, New Jersey Whitehouse, also spelled White House, is an unincorporated community located within Readington Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The community lies along the former Jersey Turnpike (now U.S. Route 22), just west of Mechanicsville. ...

, son of John Davis, a farmer, and Katherine Dilts Davis. He graduated from

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

in 1896 and was awarded a master's degree by

in 1900 and a Ph.D. in 1901, after which he studied in Europe for two years on a John Tyndall Fellowship under

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of ...

and others. In 1903 Davis took up work at Columbia as a tutor in physics, becoming an instructor in 1907, an adjunct professor in 1909, an associate professor in 1913, and a full professor in 1919, a post he held until his retirement (and appointment as professor emeritus) in 1939, at the age of seventy. Davis's postgraduate work at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

had prepared him to engage with the new physics which followed the work of scientists such as

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial con ...

, and

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...

, concepts which he helped to introduce into the Columbia curriculum. Among his many important works was a study of ionization and radiation potentials and the theory behind

corona discharge A corona discharge is an electrical discharge caused by the ionization of a fluid such as air surrounding a conductor (material), conductor carrying a high voltage. It represents a local region where the air (or other fluid) has undergone ...

s. Much of his later work was in studying

X-rays An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

, and he helped improve the double X-ray spectrometer. Davis served for many years as a consultant on X-rays to the staff of the Crocker Institute of Cancer Research at Columbia. He was a member of the Physics Division of the

United States National Research Council The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name i ...

from 1923 to 1926, and was a member or fellow of various other scientific bodies. He served as vice president of the Physics Section of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, was elected to the American

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1929, and was awarded honorary doctorates from Columbia in 1929 and Rutgers in 1930. Davis was the person most responsible for reporting the Davis-Barnes Effect, a supposed new behavior of

alpha particles Alpha particles, also called alpha rays or alpha radiation, consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium-4 nucleus. They are generally produced in the process of alpha decay but may also be produce ...

interacting with electrons in a magnetic field, and read a paper on the subject to the National Academy of Sciences in 1929, but the effect was shown to be completely the result of observer error, specifically a threshold perception effect.

Irving Langmuir Irving Langmuir (; January 31, 1881 – August 16, 1957) was an American chemist, physicist, and metallurgical engineer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry. Langmuir's most famous publicatio ...

gave the Davis-Barnes Effect as an example of "

pathological science Pathological science is an area of research where "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions."Irving Langmuir, "Colloquium on Pathological Science," held at the Knolls Research La ...

" in his 1953 talk coining that phrase. Davis married Marie Clark in 1927. He died on June 30, 1958.

References

External links

Archival collections

Finding aid to the Bergen Davis papers at Columbia University

Bergen Davis notebooks, 1899-1912, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Bergen 1869 births 1958 deaths American physicists Columbia University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Rutgers University alumni Columbia University alumni People from Readington Township, New Jersey