Robert Williams Wood (May 2, 1868 – August 11, 1955) was an American physicist and inventor who made pivotal contributions to the field of optics. He pioneered infrared and ultraviolet photography. Wood's patents and theoretical work inform modern understanding of the physics of ultraviolet light, and made possible myriad uses of UV fluorescence, which became popular after World War I. He published many articles on spectroscopy, phosphorescence, diffraction, and ultraviolet light.
Early life and education Robert W. Wood was born in Concord, Massachusetts to Robert Williams Wood, Senior. His father had been born in Massachusetts in 1803 and worked as a physician in Maine until 1838, then as a physician and pioneer in the sugar industry on the Hawaiian Islands until 1866. He was also active in the American Statistical Association. Wood junior attended The Roxbury Latin School, initially intending to become a priest. However, he decided to study optics instead when he witnessed a rare glowing aurora one night and believed the effect to be caused by "invisible rays". In his pursuit to find these "invisible rays", Wood studied and earned several degrees in physics from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a student at Harvard he swallowed marijuana as part of a self-experiment, recorded the hallucinations he experienced in a report for a course of psychology. A New York newspaper published the report. After he had received a bachelor's degree in chemistry there, he continued at Johns Hopkins University and in 1892 he changed to the University of Chicago. In 1894 he went to the Berlin University to continue chemistry, and under Heinrich Rubens's influence changed permanently to a career in physics. In 1896, he returned to the US, first the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1897 as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin.
Career
After 4 years at the University of Wisconsin and after Henry Augustus Rowland's death, he was only 33 years old and yet appointed as his successor at Johns Hopkins University and full-time professor of "optical physics" at Johns Hopkins University from 1901 until his death. He worked closely with Alfred Lee Loomis at Tuxedo Park, New York. In early 1900, he visited the United Kingdom giving a lecture at the Society of Arts in London on the diffraction process of photography in colours. Early in 1902, Wood found that the reflection spectra of sub-wavelength metallic grating had dark areas. This unusual phenomenon was named Wood's anomaly and led to the discovery of the surface plasmon polariton (SPP), a particular electromagnetic wave excited at metal surfaces. In 1903 he developed a filter, Wood's glass, that was opaque to visible light but transparent to both ultraviolet and infrared, and is used in modern-day black lights. He used it for ultraviolet photography but also suggested its use for secret communication. He was also the first person to photograph ultraviolet fluorescence. He also developed an ultraviolet lamp, which is widely known as the Wood's lamp in medicine. The slightly surreal glowing appearance of foliage in infrared photographs is called the Wood effect. In 1904, Wood disproved the existence of so-called N-rays. The French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot claimed to have discovered a new form of radiation similar to X-rays, which he named N-rays. Some physicists reported having successfully reproduced his experiments; others reported that they had failed to observe the phenomenon. Visiting Blondlot's laboratory at the behest of the journal Nature, Wood surreptitiously removed an essential prism from Blondlot's apparatus during a demonstration. The alleged effect was still reported, showing that N-rays had been self-deception on Blondlot's part. Wood identified an area of very low ultraviolet albedo (an area where most of the ultraviolet was absorbed) in the Aristarchus plateau region of the Moon, which he suggested was due to high sulfur content. The area continues to be called Wood's Spot. In 1909, Wood constructed the first practical liquid-mirror astronomical telescope, by spinning mercury to form a paraboloidal shape, and investigated its benefits and limitations. Wood has been described as the "father of both infrared and ultraviolet photography". Though the discovery of electromagnetic radiation beyond the visible spectrum and the development of photographic emulsions capable of recording them predate Wood, he was the first to intentionally produce photographs with both infrared and ultraviolet radiation. In 1938, he officially retired and was then appointed Research Professor, a position he kept until his death. Both before and after his retirement Wood took part in several police investigations, including the Wall Street bombing. His investigations into the "Candy-Box Murder", a 1930 bombing that killed 18-year-old Naomi Hall Brady and two of her siblings at her home in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, helped convict her brother-in-law Leroy of manslaughter. The bizarre death of 51-year-old socialite Katherine Briscoe at her Baltimore home in 1934 from a carelessly discarded blasting cap and his experiments derived therefrom would lead to the first scientific publication on explosively formed penetrators in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1936. Wood also authored nontechnical works. In 1915, Wood co-wrote a science fiction novel, The Man Who Rocked the Earth, along with Arthur Train. Its sequel, The Moon Maker, was published the next year. Wood also wrote and illustrated two books of children's verse, How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers (1907), and Animal Analogues (1908).
Personal life In 1892, Wood married Gertrude Hooper Ames in San Francisco. She was the daughter of Pelham Warren and Augusta Hooper (Wood) Ames, and the granddaughter of William Northey Hooper and the Massachusetts Supreme Court justice Seth Ames. She was his "constant companion for more than 60 years, although she herself had no interest in scientific things" , in Baltimore, at their summer place near Easthampton on Long Island, and during their travels abroad. They had a very wide circle of friends. His wife provided "stability without which a man of Wood's temperament might have found life occasionally very difficult". They had three children. Having had a heart attack a few years before, he died during his sleep without any severe illness in Amityville, New York on August 11, 1955.
Contributions to ultrasound
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