science · 30 March 1944 · 80 years ago
death
Died 30 Mar 1944 at age 89 (born 15 Mar 1855).
English physicist and inventor of sensitive instruments. His studies included in mining, metallurgy, chemistry and physics. He was also self-taught in a wide knowledge of geometrical methods. In 1881, he invented the integraph, a machine for drawing the antiderivative of a function. Boys is known particularly for his definitive book (1890) on the physics soap bubbles. He employed the torsion of quartz fibres to measure minute forces, repeating (1895) Henry Cavendish's experiment, to improve the measurement of the Newtonian gravitational constant. He also invented an improved automatic recording calorimeter for testing city coal gas (1905) and high-speed cameras to photograph rapidly moving objects, such as bullets and lightning discharges. He was knighted in 1935. Upon retirement in 1939, he grew and studied garden weeds.
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