Lyman James Briggs - Later Life

Later Life

In his retirement Briggs returned to research, establishing a laboratory for studying fluids under negative pressure at the National Bureau of Standards. This topic was directly related to his earlier research in the water uptake of plants. In one famous experiment he measured the negative pressure (or tension) that would break a column of water held in a capillary tube by capillary action. It turned out that at room temperature the maximum attainable tension in water was 250 bar and in mercury nearly 500 bar. This was published in several papers between (1950–1953), and the 1950 paper remains a classic and is still regularly cited in the literature on metastable water.

Briggs' love for baseball triggered another piece of research. During World War II the government had mandated that rubber in baseballs be replaced by cork. Complaints about the new balls lead Briggs to test them, and in 1945 he demonstrated that the new baseballs were inferior. This was done by addressing the issue of whether or not a pitched baseball could curve out of the plane of the pitch. With the help of two pitchers from the Washington Senators baseball club and his 1917 wind tunnel he studied the effect of spin and speed on the trajectory and established the relationship between the amount of spin and the curvature of the ball (see curveball). To measure the spin, he attached a lightweight tape to the ball and counted the number of twists in the tape. This was a very popular topic in the newspapers and is probably the most widely known of his research.

Another of Briggs many interests was the National Geographic Society and in 1934 he chaired the Society's Committee on Research and Exploration. During this time he instrumented two stratospheric balloon flights, the second of which broke the existing record for altitude in 1936. During retirement he became even more active in the Society, and lead an expedition to study the solar eclipse in Brazil in 1947. Briggs often wrote articles for the National Geographic Magazine.

Briggs died March 25, 1963, aged 88, after a diverse life of scientific exploration and service. He is remembered for his range of interests. Further, Briggs was almost universally liked, and had a reputation for even headedness and serenity. Edward U. Condon, Briggs successor at the Bureau said: "Briggs should always be remembered as one of the great figures in Washington during the first half of the century, when the Federal Government was slowly and stumblingly groping towards a realization of the important role science must play in the full future development of human society."

In 2007, Michigan State University honored the Lyman Briggs school, named for Briggs, by allowing it to become the Lyman Briggs College.