Prof. C. V. Boys, F.R.S

Abstract

PROF. C. V. BOYS, who is delivering the Guthrie Lecture of the Physical Society on May 4, is the doyen of physicists of what may be called the classical age of experimental physics. In one of his earliest researches he succeeded in photographing rifle bullets in flight. To Boys we owe the production of quartz fibres, those almost invisible threads having remarkable elastic properties which are indispensable in many galvanometers, etc. Boys produced them very simply by shooting an arrow, to which a short piece of partially fused quartz was attached, across the room, the unfused part being held behind. Employing these fibres, Boys was able to eliminate most of the errors of the Cavendish experiment and succeeded in weighing the earth with an accuracy neither before nor since surpassed. His experiments with bubbles set out in his fascinating book “Soap Bubbles and the Forces that mould them” are still an unfailing source of interest to old and young. Telescope design, sun dials and a camera for following a lightning flash throughout its course, have also occupied his attention. With the passage of the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, the design and construction of a calorimeter for measuring and recording the calorific value of towns' gas became a matter of urgency. Boys had already invented a gas calorimeter, but the step from a ‘snap’ test device to a recording instrument was a long one. Boys succeeded, however, in constructing such a recorder, and it has been in continuous use recording the calorific value of gas supplied in certain parts of the country. The instrument incorporates a very large number of most ingenious but typically ‘Boysian’ devices. To mention but one, a ‘thinking machine’ automatically corrects the volume of gas burnt in the calorimeter to normal temperature and pressure and continually records the correcting factor.