Rayleigh, Third Lord

Rayleigh, Third Lord (November 1944) Charles Vernon Boys 1855-1944, Obituary Notices of Fellows of The Royal Society, 4, 771. 

John William Strutt, the third Lord Rayleigh, was born at Terling on November 12,1842. His ability for clear thinking and self-expression was evident in his student days, and when he was Senior Wrangler in the Tripos in 1865, one of his examiners remarked, Strutt s papers were so good that they could have been sent straight to press without revision (41). 

John William Strutt, the Third Lord Rayleigh, 1842-1919. 

Upon the death of his father in 1873, Strutt inherited the family title and became the third Baron Rayleigh. With the exception of a short period (1879-1885) as the Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, Lord Rayleigh spent the rest of his hfe working at Terhng Place. He published a total of 446 publications covering many areas of physics. 

Table. These gases led their discoverers on a chase before revealing their nature, but as is now known, not because they are particularly rare but because they are noble. Noble materials are highly unreac-tive, or inert (the noble metals include gold and platinum), and this lack of reactivity means they are hard to isolate and characterize by chemical means. But as always if there is a challenge, there are those who are willing to take it up. In the case of the rare gases the champions were John William Strutt, the Third Baron Rayleigh (Lord Rayleigh) and William Ramsay.

P.N.T. Wells, Lord Rayleigh John William Strutt, third Baron Rayleigh. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control 54(3), 591-596 (2007). doi 10.1109/ TUFFC.2007.281... 

Strutt, R. J. (4th Lord Raleigh), John William SinM, Third Baron Rayleigh p. 183. Arnold, London (1924). 

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