Robert William Ditchburn (14 January 1903 – 8 April 1987) was an English physicist whose career started as Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin (1929-1946), and ended at the University of Reading, where he worked hard to build up the physics department.Obituary: Robert William Ditchburn, 14 January 1903 – 8 April 1987
The Royal Society Publishing

Life and career

Ditchburn was born in

Waterloo, Lancashire Waterloo is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. Along with Seaforth the two localities make up the Sefton Ward of Church. The area is bordered by Crosby to the north, Seaforth to the south, the Rimrose Vall ...

, England, and was educated first at Liverpool University, taking a physics degree there in 1922. He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge, earning BA (1924) and a PhD (1928) for research done under J. J. Thomson 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 ...

.Papers and correspondence of Robert William Ditchburn, 1903–1987
University of Reading Special Collections Services He successfully competed for a Fellowship at TCD in 1928, and the following year moved to Ireland to become Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. In 1930 he was elected a member of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...

and delivered one of the

Donnellan Lectures The Donnellan Lectures are a lecture series at Trinity College Dublin, instituted in 1794. The lectures were originally given under the auspices of the School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies. But since 1987 they have been run on a trien ...

in 1945. Apart from a few years back in England at the

Admiralty Research Laboratory The Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL) was a research laboratory that supported the work of the UK Admiralty in Teddington, London, England from 1921 to 1977. History During the First World War, the Anti-Submarine Division of the Admiralty ha ...

in Teddington during WWII, he remained in Dublin until 1946. He then became professor and head of the department of physics at Reading University, where he remained until 1968. While there, he focussed on building up the department, and set up the J.J. Thomson Physical Laboratory. He authored the book ''Light'' (Interscience Publishers, Inc, 1953).Catalogue of the papers and correspondence of Robert William Ditchburn FRS (1903–1987)
The National Archives Kew, Richmond, Surrey His own research included work on photoionization, the optical properties of solids and the effects of

eye movements Eye movement includes the voluntary or involuntary movement of the eyes. Eye movements are used by a number of organisms (e.g. primates, rodents, flies, birds, fish, cats, crabs, octopus) to fixate, inspect and track visual objects of inte ...

on visual perception, in particular methods for stabilizing retinal images.Robert William Ditchburn
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 34 (Dec., 1988), pp. 64–95 In 1962, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was very active in retirement, both as a consultant for the diamond industry, and working for nuclear disarmament in Pugwash movement. He published the book ''Eye Movements and Visual Perception'' (Clarendon Press, 1973) and in 1983 he was awarded the C. E. K. Mees Medal by

The Optical Society Optica (formerly known as The Optical Society (OSA) and before that as the Optical Society of America) is a professional society of individuals and companies with an interest in optics and photonics. It publishes journals and organizes conference ...

"for his lengthy career in many disciplines of optics and for his enrichment of optical knowledge".C. E. K. Mees Medal Winners
The Optical Society In 1960 he got the Thomas Young Orator Prize.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ditchburn, Robert William Academics of Trinity College Dublin Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College Dublin Members of the Royal Irish Academy People from Crosby, Merseyside British physicists British anti–nuclear weapons activists British mathematicians People from Carrickmacross 1903 births 1987 deaths