physics

Richard McLean Badger

Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger rather than just read about it. In short: Richard McLean Badger (4 May 1896 – 26 November 1974) was an American professor at Caltech and a chemist who specialized in molecular spectroscopy with X rays and infrared radiation. He made pioneering studies on the modes of vibrations and spectral energies in small molecules.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Richard McLean Badger (4 May 1896 – 26 November 1974) was an American professor at Caltech and a chemist who specialized in molecular spectroscopy with X rays and infrared radiation. He made pioneering studies on the modes of vibrations and spectral energies in small molecules. The so called Badger's rule relating force and internuclear distance in diatomic molecules is based on his work from 1933. Badger was born in Elgin, Illinois to Joseph Stillman who worked at General Electric, and Carrie Mabel Hewitt. Badger spent his early life Brisbane, Australia, where his father developed its tramway network. He was then sent to school at Elgin grammar school and again briefly in Australia. He joined Northwestern University in 1916 but was posted into the US Army 311th Field Station Battalion in World War I and was demobilized in 1919. He then went to California to continue his education at the Throop Institute of Technology which became the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the next year. He studied crystals using X ray diffraction and was influenced by Richard C. Tolman, Roscoe G. Dickinson, Paul S. Epstein, and Arthur A. Noyes. He received a PhD in 1924 and continued to work as a research fellow. Badger and Tolman worked on examining predictions based on Niels Bohr's ideas. In 1928-29 he visited universities in Germany and studied fluorescence with James Franck in Göttingen. He also worked with Reinhard Mecke in Bonn. He became an assistant professor in 1929 and began to examine hydrogen bonds in organic molecules. During World War II he was also involved in problems coming from the Manhattan Project. He worked alongside Linus Pauling working on Navy sponsored research but he did not share Pauling's pacifism and anti-nuclear testing stance. Badger married Virginia Alice Sherman in 1933 and they had a son and a daughter. The Badger family home in Brisbane is now heritage-listed.

References

External links Caltech biography

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard McLean Badger

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger

In research: Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger 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: Richard McLean Badger is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1896 births, 1974 deaths, 20th-century American people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard McLean Badger in simple terms?

Why does Richard McLean Badger 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 Richard McLean Badger?

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 Richard McLean Badger.