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Floyd K. Richtmyer
(12 Oct 1881 - 7 Nov 1939)
American physicist and educator whose name is remembered in the annual Richtmyer Memorial Award which recognizes educators who have made outstanding contributions as teachers in their fields. Richtmyer had helped to form the AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers, 1930). He wrote a well-known text-book, Introduction to Modern Physics (1828). In his investigations, he believed answers to major problems in physics have often come from running down obscure or discrepant effects in 'The Next Decimal Place'.
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Science Quotes by Floyd K. Richtmyer (2 quotes)
The whole history of physics proves that a new discovery is quite likely lurking at the next decimal place.
— Floyd K. Richtmyer
In 'The Romance of the Next Decimal Place', Science (1 Jan 1932), 75, No. 1931, 3.
When silhouetted against historical background Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory and its remarkable experimental confirmation by Hertz loomed up as large to the physicist of 1895 as the de Broglie-Schrödinger wave theory of matter and its experimental confirmation by Davison and Germer does to the physicist of to-day. [1931]
— Floyd K. Richtmyer
In 'The Romance of the Next Decimal Place', Science (1 Jan 1932), 75, No. 1931, 2.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
