Pipe smokers are almost always interesting people with rich lives, amazing professions, sophisticated talents, and fascinating hobbies. That's among the reasons that pipe shows are so fun. Meeting new people at shows and learning about their lives is always the best part of a show. It works that way with historical figures as well, one of whom was a prominent pipe smoking physicist and inventor who never lost his childlike curiosity and was known as a prankster as well as an adventurer.

Born in 1868, Robert Williams Wood was the first person to surf the coast of Long Island in New York, long before surfing became popular. He traveled to Australia and while there became an expert in boomerang throwing, an activity he continued to practice for the rest of his life. The first person in Wisconsin to own a new invention called the automobile, he used it to explore out-of-the-way rural areas, capitalizing on the novel mode of transportation to discover new places.

His approach to physics was just as adventurous as his personal life. Wood's primary interest was in optics, studying the properties of light in varying frequencies and how it interacts with matter. It was an interest that grew from his witnessing of the aurora borealis, which he deduced was caused by invisible radiation. He'd been considering entering the priesthood at that time, but his fascination with science motivated him to study physics instead.

Wood's primary interest was in optics, studying the properties of light in varying frequencies and how it interacts with matter

Wood was particularly suited to physics. As a boy he had been fascinated by fires and explosions, frightening his friends and relatives with his risky experimentation and repeated acts of arson. He was an inveterate prankster and sometimes used his knowledge to humorous effect. He was dressed as Satan one evening, for example, because he was playing the part in a local theater for some reason, and as he was passing a group of people on the street he spat into a puddle, secretly adding sodium and causing thick smoke and sparks to fly, and his street audience likewise flew, convinced that he was a demonic entity.

On another occasion, he pranked his students by building a fossil of a giant insect and leaving it in a quarry for them to discover. It was while he was living in Paris that his most famous prank evolved, played on his landlady, who happened to be the owner of a pet tortoise. Wood secretly bought several tortoises in varying sizes and replaced his landlady's with a series of larger and larger tortoises, and she was astonished at the rate her pet grew. She notified experts, none of whom considered the idea that different tortoises were in play and were dumbfounded at the impossible speed of growth demonstrated.

Wood secretly bought several tortoises in varying sizes

At one point, Wood experimented with hashish, a powerfully concentrated form of marijuana, in a scientific setting, and was amazed at the insights he thought he had while in his altered state. He tried it once more, this time ready with notebook and paper so he could write down the brilliant insights that came to him. When he later reviewed that notebook, all he had written was, "A banana is big, but its skin is bigger." He stopped experimenting with drugs after that.

Woods interest in blowing things up was useful to the police, because he was particularly good at reverse-engineering explosions. After the Wall Street Bomb of 1920, he was able to reconstruct the bomb, though the killers were not confirmed, but in another case he reconstructed the bomb that killed a woman named Naomi Hall, leading to the arrest and conviction of the bomber.

Always interested in practical applications of his experiments, it was during WWI that he developed a special signaling device that could provide distance communication with little chance of interception. It could be seen from 1200 yards, but it is unclear if it was actually used by the military. In WWII, he developed a chemical dye that would help identify downed crewmen adrift in the ocean.

His most profound talent was in experimentation with optics, and he wrote a textbook on the subject, Physical Optics, that was the seminal authority for many years, but his development of Wood's glass in 1903 is perhaps most remembered. It is a glass filter that lets ultraviolet and infrared light through but blocks visible light. It's the technique used today in the manufacture of black lights, but more importantly, it lead to his development of Wood's lamp, used as a medical diagnostic tool. By shining ultraviolet light from his lamp on the skin of patients, doctors could find bacterial and fungal infections, porphyria, vitiligo, and particular skin cancers. The lamp, when used in photography, causes a glowing effect in plants and foliage, known as the Wood effect.

it lead to his development of Wood's lamp, used as a medical diagnostic tool

He seemed to be attracted to waves of every type, from those he surfed to light waves and ultrasonic sound waves. He was especially admired as a lecturer because he always accompanied his talks with dramatic experiments to demonstrate his points. His lecture halls were always filled because he was not only a brilliant experimenter and thinker, but a showman of the first order. He was able to demonstrate impressive mirages and artificial tornadoes, for example, and he always provided visual, experimental evidence for the concepts he was explaining.

Unfortunately, the only thing we know about Wood's pipe smoking is that the formal portrait he had done included a pipe in his right hand. It has a tapered mouthpiece and appears to be a Billiard or Dublin. If it was important enough for him to insist it be part of his portrait, then it's reasonable to conclude that pipe smoking was something he enjoyed and considered part of his identity.

Wood died in 1955, and during his lifetime he was among the great physicists, though the work of superstars like Einstein and Hubble outshone his own impressive work. What's especially intriguing is not only his brilliance, but his sense of humor and adventure. His mind danced over anything interesting that he happened across, from the purple gold in King Tut's tomb, which he was able to replicate, to how to prank the administration at Harvard and how to debunk spiritualists and mediums. He was a pipe smoker we'd all enjoy sitting down with for an evening, though we would have to watch out for his practical jokes.

References:

• FamPeople.com
• American Institute of Physics
• AllThatsInteresting.com
• Encyclopedia.com
• NCBI.com
• PraBook.com