Thomas Royds
| Thomas Royds | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 11, 1884 Moorside, Oldham, England |
| Died |
May 1, 1955 (aged 71) England |
| Residence | England, Germany, India, Turkey |
| Citizenship | English |
| Fields | Solar physicist |
| Institutions | Manchester University, Kodaikanal Observatory, Indian Meteorological Service, Istanbul University |
| Alma mater | Manchester University |
Thomas Royds (April 11, 1884 – May 1, 1955) was a Solar physicist who worked with Ernest Rutherford on the identification of alpha radiation as the nucleus of the helium atom, and who was Director of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory.
Thomas Royds was born April 11, 1884 in Moorside, near Oldham, Lancashire, UK. He was the third son of Edmund Royds and Mary Butterworth. His father was a cotton spinner and his mother had been a cotton weaver. His eldest brother, Robert Royds, who was 6 years older than Thomas, became an engineer and wrote books on temperature measurement and on the design of steam locomotives.
In 1897 he entered Oldham Waterloo Secondary School and in 1903 he won the King's Scholarship to Owen's College, Manchester University for three years, studying in the Honours School of Physics under Arthur Schuster.
In 1906 he took a First Class B Sc Honours degree in Physics, and stayed at Manchester doing research in spectroscopy, especially on the constitution of the electric spark. From 1907 to 1909 he worked with Ernest Rutherford (later Lord Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics) on the spectrum of radon and, more importantly, on the identification of the alpha particle as the nucleus of the helium atom, in what is called "The Beautiful Experiment." Rutherford and Royds published four joint papers.
From 1909 to 1911, as an 1851 Exhibition Scholar, he worked under Professor Paschen in Tübingen, Germany on spectroscopic research mainly in the infra-red, and later under Professor Rubens in Berlin on "infra-red restrahlen."
At Manchester University in 1911, he took his D Sc degree in Physics awarded for all his research work to date.
The same year, he was appointed Assistant Director of Kodaikanal Solar Physics Observatory, South India, where he worked partly in collaboration with the director, Sir J Evershed. They studied the displacement of the lines in the sun's spectrum, calling attention to the significance and interpretation of negative displacements, i.e., towards the violet.
Between 1913 and 1937 he produced 49 research papers published at Kodaikanal Observatory. Others, such as the one proving the presence of oxygen in the sun's chromosphere, appeared in scientific journals, such as Nature.
He was appointed Director of Kodaikanal when Evershed retired in 1922.
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