William Frederick Meggers (July 13, 1888 – 1966) was an American physicist specialising in spectroscopy.
Born in Wisconsin, he had to combine his early schooling with working on the family farm, but earned a scholarship to Ripon College, receiving a bachelor's degree in Physics in 1910 and working as a research assistant. After a few years at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, in 1914 he joined the National Bureau of Standards, and while working there earned his PhD from Johns Hopkins University.
His work in spectrochemistry is generally credited to have sparked interest in the field in the United States, leading to him being dubbed the Dean of American spectroscopists.
In 1947 he received the Frederic Ives Medal. He was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal in 1953. Since 1970, the Optical Society of America has awarded the William F. Meggers Award for outstanding work in spectroscopy.
The crater Meggers on the Moon is named in his honor.
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| Name | Meggers, William Frederick |
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| Date of birth | July 13, 1888 |
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| Date of death | 1966 |
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Famous quotes containing the words william and/or frederick:
“And William had dudgeon for the sightless beadle
Who worshipped a God like a grandmother on ice-skates,
For William saw two angels on the point of a needle
As nobody since except W. B. Yeats.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.”
—John Frederick Nims (b. 1913)