View source for Owen Richardson

{{Short description|British physicist (1879 – 1959)}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix = [[Professor]]
| name              = Sir Owen Richardson
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRS}}
| birth_name = Owen Willans Richardson
| image             = Owen Richardson.jpg
| caption           = Richardson in 1928
| birth_date        = {{birth date|df=yes|1879|04|26}}
| birth_place       = [[Dewsbury]], Yorkshire, UK
| death_date        = {{death date and age|df=yes|1959|02|15|1879|04|26}}
| death_place       = [[Alton, Hampshire]], England
| nationality       = British
| field             = [[Physics]]
| work_institutions = {{Plainlist|
* [[University of Cambridge]]
* [[Princeton University]]
* [[King's College London]]}}
| education         = [[Batley Grammar School]]
| alma_mater        = {{Plainlist|
* [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
* [[University College London]]}}
| doctoral_advisor  = [[J. J. Thomson]]<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Rayleigh | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1941.0024 | title = Joseph John Thomson. 1856-1940 | journal = [[Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 3 | issue = 10 | pages = 586–609 | year = 1941 | title-link = J. J. Thomson | doi-access = free }}</ref>
| doctoral_students = {{Plainlist|
* [[Karl Taylor Compton]]
* [[Clinton Davisson]]
* [[Alan Tower Waterman]]}}
| known_for         = [[Richardson's law]]<br>[[Einstein–de Haas effect]]
| prizes            = {{Plainlist|
* [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]] (1913)<ref name=frs>{{Cite journal | last1 = Wilson | first1 = Wm | year = 1960 | title = Owen Willans Richardson 1879–1959 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 5 | pages = 206–215 | publisher = Royal Society | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1960.0016 | s2cid = 71230816 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
* [[Royal Medal]] (1930)
* [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] (1928)
* [[Hughes Medal]] (1920)}}
| signature         = Solvay1933Signature Richardson.jpg
}}

'''Sir Owen Willans Richardson''' (26 April 1879 – 15 February 1959) was a British [[physicist]] who won the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in 1928 for his work on [[thermionic emission]], which led to [[Richardson's law]].<ref name="nobelbio">{{cite web | work=Nobel Lectures, Physics 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam | publisher=Nobel Foundation | title=Owen Willans Richardson: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1928  | url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1928/richardson/biographical/ | year=1965 | access-date=18 October 2022}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | pmid=17818864 | last1=Richardson | publication-date=30 September 1921 | year=1921 | title=Problems of Physics | volume=54 | issue=1396 | pages=283–91 | doi=10.1126/science.54.1396.283 | journal=Science | first1=OW|bibcode = 1921Sci....54..283R | s2cid=4073897 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | pmid=17830216 | last1=Richardson | publication-date=11 July 1913 | year=1913 | title=The Emission of Electrons From Tungsten at High Temperatures: An Experimental Proof That The Electric Current In Metals Is Carried By Electrons | volume=38 | issue=967 | pages=57–61 | doi=10.1126/science.38.967.57 | journal=Science | first1=OW|bibcode = 1913Sci....38...57R | url=https://zenodo.org/record/1448117 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | pmid=17800821 | last1=Richardson | publication-date=12 July 1912 | year=1912 | title=The Laws of Photoelectric Action and the Unitary Theory of Light (Lichtquanten Theorie) | volume=36 | issue=915 | pages=57–8 | doi=10.1126/science.36.915.57-a | journal=Science | first1=OW|bibcode = 1912Sci....36...57R | s2cid=39108526 | url=https://zenodo.org/record/1448088 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation | pmid=17792421 | last1=Richardson | last2=Compton | first2= KT| publication-date=17 May 1912 | year=1912 | title=The Photoelectric Effect | volume=35 | issue=907 | pages=783–4 | doi=10.1126/science.35.907.783 | journal=Science | first1=OW|bibcode = 1912Sci....35..783R | url=https://zenodo.org/record/1448080 }}</ref><ref>[https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/richardson-lecture.pdf Owen Richardson's Nobel lecture on thermionics, 12 December 1929]</ref>

==Biography==
Richardson was born in [[Dewsbury]], Yorkshire, England, the son of Joshua Henry and Charlotte Maria Richardson. He was educated at [[Batley Grammar School]] and [[Trinity College, Cambridge]], where he gained First Class Honours in Natural Sciences.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{acad|id=RCRT897OW|name=Richardson, Owen Willans}}</ref> He then got a DSc from [[University College London]] in 1904.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

After graduating in 1900, he began researching the emission of electricity from hot bodies at the [[Cavendish Laboratory]] in Cambridge, and in October 1902 he was made a fellow at Trinity.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence |date=8 October 1902 |page=4 |issue=36893}}</ref> In 1901, he demonstrated that the current from a heated wire seemed to depend exponentially on the temperature of the wire with a mathematical form similar to the [[Arrhenius equation]]. This became known as Richardson's law: "If then the negative radiation is due to the corpuscles coming out of the metal, the saturation current ''s'' should obey the law <math>s = A\,T^{1/2}\,e^{-b/T}</math>."<ref>O. W. Richardson (1901) [https://books.google.com/books?id=QAUPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA286 "On the negative radiation from hot platinum,"] ''Philosophical of the Cambridge Philosophical Society'', '''11''' : 286–295; see especially p. 287.</ref>

Richardson was professor at [[Princeton University]] from 1906 to 1913, and returned to the UK in 1914 to become Wheatstone Professor of Physics at [[King's College London]], where he was later made director of research in 1924.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sir Owen Willans Richardson {{!}} Nobel Prize, Thermionic Emission, Heat Transfer {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Owen-Willans-Richardson |access-date=2023-10-20 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>  In 1927, he was one of the participants of the fifth [[Solvay Conference]] on Physics that took place at the International Solvay Institute for Physics in Belgium. He retired from King’s College London in 1944, and died in 1959. He is buried in [[Brookwood Cemetery]] in Surrey.

He also researched the [[photoelectric effect]], the [[Gyromagnetic ratio|gyromagnetic effect]], the emission of electrons by chemical reactions, soft [[X-rays]], and the spectrum of hydrogen.

Richardson married Lilian Wilson, sister of his Cavendish colleague [[Harold A. Wilson (physicist)|Harold Wilson]], in 1906, and had two sons and a daughter. Richardson had two sisters. Elizabeth Mary Dixon Richardson married the prominent mathematician [[Oswald Veblen]]. Charlotte Sara Richardson married the American physicist (and 1937 Nobel laureate) [[Clinton Davisson]], who was Richardson's PhD student at Princeton. After Lilian's death in 1945, he was remarried in 1948 to Henriette Rupp, a physicist.

Owen Willans Richardson had a son, Harold Owen Richardson, who specialised in Nuclear Physics and was also the chairman of the Physics Department at Bedford College, London University and later on became emeritus professor at London University.{{cite needed|date=November 2020}}

==Honours==
[[File:Owen Willans Richardson Grave.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Richardson's grave in [[Brookwood Cemetery]]]]
Richardson was elected an International Member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1910.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Owen+W.+Richardson&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-12-07 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> He was elected a [[List of Fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1913|Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1913]],<ref name=frs/> and was awarded its [[Hughes Medal]] in 1920. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928, "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him".<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1928/ Nobel prize citation, Nobel foundation website]</ref> He was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] in 1939.{{fact|date=December 2023}}

== Works ==

* ''[https://archive.org/details/emissionofelectr00richrich/ The emission of electricity from hot bodies]'' (1st edition, 1916)
* ''[https://archive.org/details/emissionelectricity00richrich/ The emission of electricity from hot bodies]'' (2nd edition, 1921)

<gallery>
File:Richardson-2.jpg|Title page to ''The emission of electricity from hot bodies'' (1916)
File:Richardson-3.jpg|Preface to ''The emission of electricity from hot bodies'' (1916)
File:Richardson-5.jpg|Table of contents to ''The emission of electricity from hot bodies'' (1916)
File:Richardson-6.jpg|First page to ''The emission of electricity from hot bodies'' (1916)
</gallery>

==References==
{{reflist|35em}}
==External links==
*{{Commons category inline}}
* {{Nobelprize}}
{{Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates 1926-1950}}
{{1928 Nobel Prize winners}}

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, Owen Willans}}
[[Category:1879 births]]
[[Category:1959 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century  British physicists]]
[[Category:Academics of King's College London]]
[[Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:British Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Burials at Brookwood Cemetery]]
[[Category:Fellows of King's College London]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[Category:People educated at Batley Grammar School]]
[[Category:People from Dewsbury]]
[[Category:Princeton University faculty]]
[[Category:Royal Medal winners]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Physical Society]]
[[Category:British theoretical physicists]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]