born Nov. 12, 1842, Langford Grove, Essex, Eng.
died June 30, 1919, Terling Place, Witham, Essex
English physicist.
In 1873 he succeeded to his father's title and built a research laboratory on his estate. He taught physics at Cambridge University (187984) and was secretary of the Royal Society (188495). His research included work on electromagnetism, colour, acoustics, and diffraction gratings, and his theory explaining the blue colour of the sky evolved into the Rayleigh scattering law. In 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his isolation of argon . In 1908 he became chancellor of Cambridge University. His influential Theory of Sound (1877, 1878) examines questions of vibrations and resonance of media.