Bill Fickinger's Web Site

January 2012         Email: wfickinger@aol.com

Welcome. Thanks for visiting.

I am a retired professor of physics, living in Cleveland Ohio USA. You will find here links to my major interests (physics history, peace action), along with genealogical information on the Fickinger, Etchingham, Biechele, and Golding families.

(so search engines find me, I’ll add real name: William Fickinger)

First, a couple of books:

In 2011, I completed a biography of Dayton C. Miller, who was chair of the Case physics department from 1893 until 1937. Miller was the first American to make medical x-rays, he was an expert on the physics of musical acoustics, and in the 1920’s he found himself at the middle of the debate about the validity of Einstein’s theory of relativity. I wrote it for the general reader who is interested in the popular history of science. I hope you enjoy it. The book title: Miller’s Waves

Here is a link to the chapter which describes Miller’s work at Mt. Wilson: Chapter 15

The book is available in printed or ebook format at Amazon.com

wjf 2011 outside “Miller Room” in the CWRU Physics Building

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In 2007 my history of the CWRU physics department was published:

“Physics at a Research University, Case Western Reserve 1830 – 1990”

This is a history of the physics research done by the faculty and students of CWRU and its parent institutions.  Highlights of the work done by over 100 researchers are described at a level so that the general reader can understand qualitatively how and why the research was done, and the more technical reader can appreciate some more quantitative details.  The book ends with a "post-script" chapter which describes research performed from 1990 to 2005.   Lists of the names of physics graduates, including titles of graduate theses, appear as appendices. 

link to book at Amazon.com

A link to PDF files of the entire book can be found at www.phys.case.edu/history

Here are some other links:

Family and genealogy material on Fickinger, Etchingham, Golding, Biechele

Autobiographical CV and publications

Essays a few short pieces

Case Collection of Physics Instruments site created by undergrad to show the collection

CWRU Physics Department the home page of my department

WJF page on department site

Cleveland Peace Action an organization I work with

Here is a video of the opening ceremonies of the 1987 Michelson-Morley Centennial Celebration,

at which I had the honor of welcoming the participants to the unique two-day event.

(Courtesy of Digital Case, Kelvin Smith Library) {904 Mb} MPA1987

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