Robert Williams Wood

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1868, Robert Williams Wood became one of America’s leading physicists and an influential professor at Johns Hopkins University. His work ranged across optics, spectroscopy, diffraction, fluorescence, and ultrasound, earning him international recognition and honors including the Rumford Medal and the Henry Draper Medal.

Wood helped establish infrared and ultraviolet photography as practical scientific tools. He developed Wood’s glass, created the ultraviolet lamp now known as Wood’s lamp, investigated diffraction patterns and liquid-mirror telescopes, and helped expose the supposed “N-rays” as an experimental illusion. His name also lives on in Wood’s anomaly, Wood’s effect, and a lunar crater.

Alongside his technical work, Wood wrote and illustrated children’s verse in How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Animal Analogues. He also co-wrote the science-fiction novels The Man Who Rocked the Earth and The Moon Maker. He remained active in research after retiring from teaching and died in Amityville, New York, in 1955.