In 1873 John William Strutt's father, the second Baron Rayleigh, died and Strutt succeeded to that title. He is, therefore, almost universally referred to in the scientific literature as Lord Rayleigh. While the majority of his work dealt with sound and optics, Rayleigh may be most familiar to the layperson as the discover of the rare gas argon. For this accomplishment he was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in physics. Rayleigh served for a period of five years as director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. With that exception, he spent nearly all of his adult life at his home in Terling Place where he constructed a well-equipped scientific laboratory. There he carried out experiments on a remarkable variety of subjects that led to the publication of some 450 papers.

John William Strutt was born at Langford Grove, near Maldon, in Essex, on November 12, 1842. He was the eldest son of...