William V. Houston
William V. Houston was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, United States on January 19th, 1900 and is the American Physicist. At the age of 68, William V. Houston biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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After his study and research in Germany, Houston returned to Caltech and served as an assistant professor (1927–1929), associate professor (1929–1931), and professor (1931–1946). He again took up his experimental work on spectroscopy and the theory of electrons in atoms and solids. His work on the Zeeman effect resulted in a correction to the accepted value of the e/m ratio, as well as stimulating R. T. Birge and J. W. M. DuMond to work up a consistent set of precise atomic constants. In solid-state physics he studied the surface photoelectric effect and made the first suggestion and analysis of the use of soft x-rays to investigate the energy bands of solids. At Caltech, and later at Rice University, he taught a course on mathematical physics, for which he wrote a textbook.
During World War II, through the influence of Dr. Frank B. Jewett of the National Academy of Sciences, Houston became involved in undersea warfare research and development, for which he also had supervisory responsibility at installations at Harvard University, San Diego, and Key West.
In 1946, Houston became the second president of Rice Institute (now Rice University) in Houston, Texas, where he served as president and professor until 1961. He resigned as president after a serious illness in 1961, but continued his teaching responsibilities. As president, Houston brought many advancements to the university, including enlargement of the graduate school, a five-year engineering program, lowering of the student-teacher ratio to 10:1, and fostering a closer relationship between the students and faculty.
In 1948 during W. V. Houston’s presidency, a debate raged in the letters page of the campus newspaper, the Thresher, regarding integration of the university, explicitly forbidden by the university’s original charter. This debate included letters from the executive secretary of the Houston branch of the NAACP, civil rights advocate James Dombrowski of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, and segregationist Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. After watching several months of back and forth, under pressure from the Rice Board of Trustees, Houston sent a note to the Thresher pointing out that this debate was “academic” because of the language of the founding charter. Rice remained segregated until a changed Board filed suit to break the racial exclusion in the charter and Black students were admitted in 1963.
In 1953, Houston wrote a review of Sommerfeld’s first volume of the six-volume Lectures on Theoretical Physics, based on Sommerfeld’s six-semester course on theoretical physics.
Houston was productive until the day he died in Edinburgh, Scotland on August 22, 1968. He was survived by his wife, Mildred née White, whom he married in 1924.