Theodore Lyman

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For other persons named Theodore Lyman, see Theodore Lyman (disambiguation).

Theodore Lyman (1874 - 1954) was a U.S. physicist and spectroscopist, born at Boston. He was graduated from Harvard in 1897, where he also received his Ph.D. in 1900. He became an assistant in physics at Harvard, where he remained, becoming full professor in 1917, and where he was also director of the Jefferson Physical Laboratory (1908-17). Dr. Lyman made important studies in phenomena connected with diffraction gratings, on the wave lengths of extreme ultraviolet light discovered by Schumann^[clarify] and also on the properties of light of extremely short wave length, on all of which he contributed valuable papers to the literature of physics in the proceedings of scientific societies. During World War One he served in France with the American Expeditionary Force, holding the rank of major of engineers.

He was the eponym of the Lyman series of spectral lines. The Lyman Crater, an impact crater that lies in the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon, was named after him.