physics

Seibert Q. Duntley

Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley rather than just read about it. In short: Seibert Quimby Duntley was an American physicist. He was born in Bushnell, Illinois, on October 2, 1911.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Seibert Quimby Duntley was an American physicist. He was born in Bushnell, Illinois, on October 2, 1911.

Education He received an SB in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933. Duntley received an MS degree from the California Institute of Technology in 1935 and an Sc.D. in physics from MIT in 1939.

Career While at MIT, Duntley met and worked with Karl Taylor Compton, Harold Eugene Edgerton, and many other prominent physicists. Duntley's primary interest was in applied physics particularly the optics of turbid media. He started the Visibility Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939/40. It was the brainchild of Duntley and MIT physics chair Dr. Arthur C. Hardy. It was focused on applying optics to such problems as camouflage, misdirection of aerial bombardment, target location, visibility of submerged objects at sea. In 1952, Roger Revelle and Quimby Duntley agreed that the laboratory would become part of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, and the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships agreed to pay for the move. The work of the laboratory centered on the transmission of visible light through the atmosphere and water and the related problems of image formation and recognition. The nature of much of the research required measurements of the optical properties of the ocean or atmosphere for which no instruments existed. As a result of these requirements, many unique and very specialized instruments were developed by the laboratory, many of which were based on concepts or optical designs devised by Duntley. He earned the academic rank of professor in 1966 and taught at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and at the Department of Applied Physics and Information Science (APIS) at the University of California, San Diego until his retirement.

Institutional affiliations and awards Duntley was an active member of many professional associations, particularly the Optical Society of America, where he was a member of the inaugural class of Fellows in 1959, and Sigma Xi. He was president of the Optical Society of America in 1965. He was chairman of the Representatives of the Optical Society on the U.S. National Committee of the International Commission on Illumination. During the 1960s he was a member of the Armed Forces-National Research Council Committee on Vision. He was a participant in the 1971 JASON Laser Summer Study. He chaired the David Richardson Medal Committee of the Optical Society of America from 1972 to 1975. He received many awards, including the Army-Navy Certificate of Appreciation and, in 1961, the Frederic Ives Medal, the highest award of the Optical Society of America, "recognizing overall distinction in optics." Quimby Duntley died in La Jolla on October 22, 1999.

References

External links Articles Published by early OSA Presidents Journal of the Optical Society of America

See also Optical Society of America#Past Presidents of the OSA

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Seibert Q. Duntley

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley

In research: Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley 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: Seibert Q. Duntley is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1911 births, 1999 deaths, 20th-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Seibert Q. Duntley in simple terms?

Seibert Quimby Duntley was an American physicist. He was born in Bushnell, Illinois, on October 2, 1911.

Why does Seibert Q. Duntley 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 Seibert Q. Duntley?

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 Seibert Q. Duntley.