physics

Leonard T. Troland

Leonard T. Troland is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Leonard T. Troland rather than just read about it. In short: Leonard Thompson Troland (26 April 1889– 27 May 1932) was an American physicist, psychologist and psychical researcher. A specialist on the perception of colors, he became chief engineer of Technicolor Corporation.

Key takeaways

Leonard T. Troland belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Leonard T. Troland to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Leonard T. Troland from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Leonard Thompson Troland (26 April 1889– 27 May 1932) was an American physicist, psychologist and psychical researcher. A specialist on the perception of colors, he became chief engineer of Technicolor Corporation. Troland proposed that genes originated from enzyme-like autocatalysts, calling them "genetic enzymes" and that the earliest life forms were purely auto-catalytic substance.

Life and work Troland was born in Norwich, Connecticut. He graduated in 1912 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in biochemistry. He then studied psychology at Harvard University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1915 under Hugo Münsterberg. He also worked on book on physics for non physicists, The Nature of Matter and Electricity (1917), with Daniel Comstock. He worked for a year as a Harvard Travelling (Sheldon) fellow at the General Electric Nela research lab. During World War I, he worked on acoustic devices to detect submarines. He served as a member of committees of the National Research Council on vision and aviation psychology. In 1922 he wrote a book, The Present Status of Visual Science. At Harvard, he gave advanced courses in psychology, and he followed up his 1926 book The Mystery of Mind with Fundamentals in Human Motivation in 1928. At the same time, he was chief engineer of the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation of California and was appointed director of research at Technicolor in 1925. Troland was elected to serve as president of the Optical Society of America from 1922 to 1923. He gave his name to the troland (symbol Td), the unit of conventional retinal illuminance. It is meant as a method for correcting photometric measurements of luminance values impinging on the human eye by scaling them by the effective pupil size. The National Academy of Sciences gives an award on his behalf. In 1932, he fell, accidentally, to his death into a rocky canyon while hiking near the observatory at Pasadena CA, Mount Wilson.

Psychical research Troland took an interest in psychical research and had carried out experiments in telepathy at Harvard University which were reported in 1917. He was one of the first scientists to use a machine in this type of experiment instead of a human experimenter. The machine consisted of a lamp which when triggered would light either of two square blocks. The agent would attempt to perceive the light in one room while the receiver would use a switch to identify which lamp had been lit in the other room. Troland discovered that the subjects had produced below chance expectations.

Publications A Technique for the Experimental Study of Telepathy and Other Alleged Clairvoyant Processes (1917) The Nature of Matter and Electricity: An Outline of Modern Views [with Daniel Frost Comstock] (1917) The Mystery of Mind (1926) The Fundamentals of Human Motivation (1928)

See also Optical Society of America Troland Research Awards

References

External links Articles Published by early OSA Presidents – Journal of the Optical Society of America Trolands Research Awards Leonard Troland and the Story of the Photon's Name

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leonard T. Troland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leonard T. Troland claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Leonard T. Troland before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Leonard T. Troland ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Leonard T. Troland

In research: Leonard T. Troland appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Leonard T. Troland in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Leonard T. Troland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1889 births, 1932 deaths, 20th-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leonard T. Troland outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Leonard T. Troland in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Leonard T. Troland means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Leonard T. Troland out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Leonard T. Troland in simple terms?

Why does Leonard T. Troland matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Leonard T. Troland?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Leonard T. Troland.