Paul R. Heyl

Paul Renno Heyl (1872, Philadelphia – 22 October 1961) was an American inventor, physicist,^[1] and author.

Biography

Born in Philadelphia, Heyl earned his PhD in physics in 1899 from the University of Pennsylvania. For several years he taught in high schools in Pennsylvania. In 1907 he won the Franklin Institute's Boyden Premium. In 1910 he joined the physics staff of the Commercial Research Corporation in New York. In 1920 he was employed as a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington D.C. With Lyman J. Briggs, Heyl invented the Heyl–Briggs earth inductor compass.^[2] The compass used a spinning electric coil mounted in an airplane to determine the airplane's bearing in relation to the Earth's magnetic field. This invention won for Heyl and Briggs the 1922 Magellan Medal of the American Philosophical Society. At the NBS, Heyl worked on a redetermination of Newton's constant of gravitation using a torsion balance.^[3] He retired form the NBS in 1942. He won the Potts medal in 1943.

He married Lucy Knight Daugherty; they had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

Selected publications

• The mystery of evil. Chicago: Open Court. 1920.
• The common sense of the theory of relativity. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. 1924.
• with V. L. Chrisler: Architectural acoustics. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1926; several reprints
• The fundamental concepts of physics in the light of modern discovery (three lectures at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, January, 1925). Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. 1926.^[4]
• The lingering dryad. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 1930.
• "New frontiers of physics". New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1930.
• The philosophy of a scientific man. New York: Vanguard Press. 1933.
• The value of gravity at Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office. 1936.
• Electronics, reprints of a series of lectures. Indianapolis: P. R. Mallory & Co. 1943.

References

1. "Obituary: Paul R. Heyl". Physics Today 15 (2): 72. February 1962. doi:10.1063/1.3058040.
2. Heyl, P. R.; Briggs, L. J. (1922). "The earth inductor compass". Proc. Am. Phil. Soc. 61: 15–32.
3. Heyl, Paul R.; Chrzanowski, Peter (July 1942). "A New Determination of the Constant of Gravitation, Research Paper RP1480". Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards 29.
4. Eichlin, C. G. (March 1926). "Review: Fundamental Concepts of Physics (Heyl, Paul R.)". Journal of Chemical Education 3 (3): 364. doi:10.1021/ed003p364.

External links

• Paul R. Heyl at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• The Earth Inductor Compass
• "Does the speed of light in space depend upon its wave-length?" by Paul R. Heyl