Arthur Compton

Claimed by Annabelle Mathis

Arthur Compton was an American physicist most well known for the discovery of the Compton Effect, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927. This discovery established the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation.

Personal Life

Compton was born in Wooster, Ohio on September 10, 1892 to Elias and Otelia Catherine (née Augspurger) Compton. Otelia Catherine was named American Mother of the Year in 1939. Elias was Dean of the University of Wooster, where both Arthur and his two brothers, Karl and Wilson, attended. Compton also had a sister, Mary. In 1916, he married Betty Charity McCloskey, a classmate at Wooster. Together they had two sons, Arthur Alan and John Joseph. Compton was Baptist, serving as a deacon at a Baptist church for a few years. On March 15, 1962, he died in Berkeley, California, due to a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in Wooster Cemetery in Wooster, California.

Education

Compton attended the University of Wooster, graduating in 1913 with a Bachelor of Science. From there he continued onto Princeton University where he earned his Master of Arts in 1914 and a PhD in Physics in 1916, writing his dissertation on "The intensity of X-ray reflection, and the distribution of the electrons in atoms".