James P. C. Southall, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJames P. C. Southall
American physicist
Date of Birth: 04-Apr-1871
Place of Birth: Norfolk, Virginia, United States
Date of Death: 01-Jan-0001
Profession: physicist
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About James P. C. Southall
- James P.
- C.
- Southall was born in Norfolk, Va., on April 4, 1871.
- He attended Richmond College from 1886 to 1888 and obtained an A.B.
- in 1891 and an M.A.
- in 1893 at the University of Virginia.
- He was an instructor in physics at the University of Virginia between 1891 and 1893, and he taught physics and mathematics at the Miller Manual Training School, in Albemarle, Va.
- He had a fellowship at Johns Hopkins from 1898 to 1899 and taught at Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y., from 1899 to 1901.
- From 1901 to 1914, he taught at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and in 1914 he joined the faculty at Columbia University, where he served until his retirement in 1940.
- His two specialties were geometrical optics and physiological optics.
- He wrote Principles of Geometrical Optics in 1910 and Mirrors, Prisms and Lenses (1918, rev.
- eds.
- 1923, 1934).
- But he is probably best known as editor of the American edition of Helmholtz’s Physiological Optics (1924–25).
- He also wrote Introduction to Physiological Optics (1941).
- He wrote many papers, a number of which appeared in JOSA, on optical illusions and geometrical optics.
- He served as president of the Optical Society of America in 1921. During the First World War, he was a consultant to the War Department on range finders, periscopes, gunsights and similar optical equipment.
- Fifteen of his articles were published in JOSA on such topics as ray tracing, conjugate surfaces and the early pioneers in physiological optics.
- In retirement, he returned to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, and donated most of his booksand papers to the library there.
- He was buried at the University of Virginia cemetery.
Read more at Wikipedia