Wilfrid Noel Bond
English physicist (1897–1937)
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Wilfrid Noel Bond (27 December 1897 – 25 August 1937) was an English physicist and engineer known for his work in fluid mechanics. He received his Doctor of Science from the University of London, and was a lecturer at the University of Reading from 1921 until his death.[1][2] The Bond number, used in fluid mechanics to characterize the shape of bubbles and drops, is named after him.[3]
Wilfrid Noel Bond | |
|---|---|
Bond c. 1920 | |
| Born | 27 December 1897 St Albans, Hertfordshire, England |
| Died | 25 August 1937 (aged 39) |
| Known for | Bond number |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Fluid mechanics |
Bond is also known for having described, in 1922, an improvement to the first fisheye lens setup[4], previously proposed by Robert W. Wood in 1908[5]. Consisting of an hemispherical lens glass in a pinhole setup, it offered a much simpler and portable setup than its predecessor (which relied on a rectilinear lens installed inside a sealed tank of water) and reduced exposure times[6]. The focal length depended on the refractive index and radius of the hemispherical lens, and the maximum aperture was approximately f/50; it was not corrected for chromatic aberration and projected a curved field onto a flat plate. Bond noted the new lens could be used to record cloud cover or lightning strikes at a given location.
Bibliography
- An Introduction to Fluid Motion (1925)
- Numerical Examples in Physics (1931)
- Probability and Random Errors (1935)