Richard Tolman
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.030910
It’s the birthday of Richard Tolman, who was born in 1881 in West Newton, Massachusetts. Tolman studied chemical engineering at MIT, where he earned a PhD in 1910. Despite that chemical background, Tolman is best known for his contributions to physics. In 1916 he proved that electrical current consists of the particles that J J Thomson had discovered in 1897 -- electrons -- flowing through a metal. He devoted most of his career to investigating thermodynamics in relativistic, quantum and cosmological contexts. One of his results anticipated the discovery of the cosmic microwave background: In 1934 he demonstrated that black body radiation in an expanding universe would cool yet remain thermal.
Date in History: 4 March 1881
