William Ritchie (1790?–1837) was a Scottish physicist. He was noted as an ingenious experimentalist.

Life

Born about 1790, he was educated for the Church of Scotland, and was licensed to preach; but he abandoned the church for the teaching profession. He became rector of the Royal Academy of Tain, in Ross-shire. After saving a little money, he provided a substitute to perform his duties, and went to Paris. There he attended the lectures of Louis Jacques Thénard, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, and Jean-Baptiste Biot. He soon acquired skill in devising and performing experiments in natural philosophy.^[1]

Ritchie's publications led to his appointment to the professorship of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution, where he delivered a course of probationary lectures in 1829. In 1832 he was appointed professor of natural philosophy in London University.^[1]

Ritchie was subsequently engaged on experiments on the manufacture of glass for optical purposes, and a commission was appointed by the government to inquire into his results. A telescope of eight inches aperture was constructed by John Dollond from Ritchie's glass, at the recommendation of the commission, but its performance was not very satisfactory (it is unrelated to the later Ritchey–Chrétien telescope).^[1]

Ritchie died on 15 September 1837 of a fever caught in Scotland.^[1]

Works

Articles about
Electromagnetism
Electricity Magnetism Optics History Textbooks Phenomena
Electrostatics Electric charge Coulomb's law Conductor Charge density Permittivity Electric dipole moment Electric field Electric potential Electric flux / potential energy Electrostatic discharge Gauss's law Induction Insulator Polarization density Static electricity Triboelectricity
Magnetostatics Ampère's law Biot–Savart law Gauss's law for magnetism Magnetic field Magnetic flux Magnetic dipole moment Magnetic permeability Magnetic scalar potential Magnetization Magnetic vector potential Right-hand rule
Electrodynamics Lorentz force law Electromagnetic induction Faraday's law Lenz's law Displacement current Maxwell's equations Electromagnetic field Electromagnetic pulse Electromagnetic radiation Larmor formula Bremsstrahlung Cyclotron radiation Synchrotron radiation Maxwell tensor Poynting vector Liénard–Wiechert potential Jefimenko's equations Eddy current London equations
Electrical network Alternating current Capacitance Direct current Electric current Electrolysis Current density Joule heating Electromotive force Impedance Inductance Ohm's law Parallel circuit Resistance Resonant cavities Series circuit Voltage Waveguides Network analysis
Magnetic circuit Gyrator–capacitor model Magnetic complex reluctance Magnetic reluctance Magnetomotive force Permeance
Covariant formulation Electromagnetism and special relativity Electromagnetic tensor stress–energy tensor Four-current Four-potential Mathematical descriptions Maxwell's equations in curved spacetime
Scientists Ampère Biot Coulomb Davy Einstein Faraday Fizeau Gauss Heaviside Henry Hertz Hopkinson Jefimenko Joule Kelvin Lenz Liénard Lorentz Maxwell Neumann Ørsted Ohm Poynting Ritchie Savart Singer Steinmetz Tesla Volta Weber Wiechert Poisson
v t e

He became known to Sir John Herschel, and through him he communicated to the Royal Society papers On a New Photometer, On a New Form of the Differential Thermometer, and On the Permeability of Transparent Screens of Extreme Tenuity by Radiant Heat. Shortly afterwards he published two small treatises on geometry (1833; 3rd edit. 1853) and the differential and integral calculus (1836; 2nd edit. 1847). He communicated to the Royal Society—of which he was elected a fellow—papers On the Elasticity of Threads of Glass and the Application of this Property to Torsion Balances, and also experimental researches on the electric and chemical theories of galvanism, on electromagnetism, and voltaic electricity.^[1]

His papers contributed to the Philosophical Magazine are in vols. i.–xii.^[1]