Abstract
The article is a transcript of a talk given in Brighton on 11th April 1994 at a symposium organized by the Institute of Physics to mark the centenary of Lord Rayleigh's discovery of argon. Rayleigh's experimental and theoretical contributions to high resolution spectroscopy include the Rayleigh criterion for the resolution of closely-spaced spectral lines, the invention of the blazed grating and the optical isolator, and his pioneering work on multilayer dielectric films. He also introduced the concept of Rayleigh scattering, now an important spectroscopic tool, worked on line-broadening mechanisms, and developed techniques for the measurement of optical rotation. His greatest contribution, however, was to set an example of how experimental physics should be done.
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