NBS director Strat-
ton allowed Foote to
study the photoioniza-
tion of alkali vapors;
and, in 1912, Foote
and Fred L. Mohler
published Origin of
Spectra. This was a
major contribution to
the scientific literature
of that era. Foote rose
to become chief of the
In 1931, Foote was
pyrometry section of
NBS by 1916. chair of a small group
In 1917, he left NBS
In 1927, he
resigned from NBS
and accepted a Senior
Industrial Fellow-
ship established by
Gulf Oil Corp. at the
Mellon Institute of
Industrial Research in
Pittsburgh. By 1933,
he was director of
research and execu-
tive vice president of
Gulf Research and
Development Cor-
poration. In 1953, he
retired from Gulf and
took a position in
Washington on the
staff of the National
Academy of Sciences
as a coordinator to
the Office of Ordnance Research. In
1957, President Eisenhower appointed
Foote Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering. He served in
that capacity until 1960.
of physicists that had
to become an assistant
manager at Fisher Scien- formed the American
tific Co. in Pittsburgh,
Institute of Physics.
where he worked on
telescopic gun sights
for the military. Fisher
also permitted him to deliver lectures on
pyrometry at the University of Minne-
sota, where he completed his Ph.D. in
1917. His thesis was on pyrheliometry,
mostly based on his work at NBS. (At
Minnesota, all of the younger staff took
advanced physics courses from each
other: John T. Tate taught Foote statisti-
cal mechanics; and Foote taught radia-
tion theory to Arthur Compton, Tate,
and Paul Klopsteg, all later presidents of
the American Physical Society.)
In 1931, Foote was chair of a small
group of physicists that had formed the
American Institute of Physics, and he was
editor of its journal Review of Scientific
Instruments for 10 years. He was president
of the American Physical Society in 1933.
Tate, who had just spent a year at
Gottingen with James Franck, introduced Foote to atomic processes. Foote
returned to NBS during war service. He
worked on the manufacture of high-grade optical glass. He also studied
some of the health hazards of X-rays.
He worked in a new section of NBS
that tried to standardize X-ray dosages.
In 1927, at the request of Commerce
Secretary Herbert Hoover, his section
set up standards for hospital X-ray installations for the protection of operators
and patients.
For recreation, he played clarinet in a
chamber group, worked on his automobile, and took out his a cabin cruiser for
weekend cruises on the Potomac. Foote
occasionally showed a lighter side. Once
while he was at Gulf, he published (
anonymously) a satiric article in the house
publication of the Taylor Instrument
Company, titled “On the temperature of
Heaven and Hell.” Using his background
in pyrometry and some Biblical descriptions, he concluded that heaven was
hotter than hell. The article was reprinted
in Applied Optics in 1972.
Foote joined OSA in 1917 as member
number 33. In 1920, he served briefly as
the secretary of OSA, but he moved on
to become editor of JOSA when Hermann Kellner declined re-appointment.
Foote was editor for 12 years, from 1920
to 1932.
In his later years, Foote was active in
the American Philosophical Society. He
died on August 2, 1971. t
John N. Howard (johnnelsonhoward@gmail.
com) is the founding editor of Applied Optics and
retired chief scientist of the Air Force Geophysics
Laboratory.
2_PowerMeters_LFW_07.qxd 10/3/08 5:23 P
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