Alfred Marshall Mayer

Alfred Marshall Mayer (born in Baltimore, Maryland, 13 November 1836; died in Maplewood, New Jersey, 13 July 1897) was a United States physicist. Biography He was born to Charles F. Mayer, a lawyer and state senator, and Eliza C. Mayer. He attended St. Mary's College, but left for the workshop and drafting room of a mechanical engineer, where he remained two years, acquiring a knowledge of the use of tools, mechanical drawing, and methods of constructing machines. He then spent two years in obtaining a thorough knowledge of analytical chemistry by laboratory practice. In 1856 he was called to the chair of physics and chemistry in the University of Maryland, and from 1859 to 1861 he held a similar post in Westminster College, Missouri. In 1863/4 he studied physics, mathematics, and physiology in the University of Paris, and on his return he filled successively chairs in Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, and Lehigh University, Bethlehem, from 1865 to 1870. At Lehigh, he had charge of the department of astronomy, and superintended the erection of an observatory, from which he made a series of observations of Jupiter. He had charge of the expedition that was sent to Burlington, Iowa, under the auspices of the U.S. Nautical Almanac office to photograph the solar eclipse of 7 August 1869, and made 41 perfect photographs. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1869. In 1871 he accepted the professorship of physics in Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey.