Doctor Wood. Modern Wizard of the Laboratory: The Story of an American Small Boy Who Became the Most Daring and Original Experimental Physicist of Our Day-but Never Grew Up

On the day before they left, I’d noticed a new, mysterious, and strange device. The door of the bedroom occupied by Dr. and Mrs. Wood gives on the living room, and opens outward. This door had been newly fitted with a large and powerful coiled spring. It seemed so queer I had ventured to ask its purpose. Wood pulled the door open, let go, and it shut with a resounding bang. Said he, “It was a birthday present to my wife yesterday. For twenty years she’d been saying to me, ‘Will you shut that door!’.”

Then I noticed a small card tacked above, which read:

MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DOOR

At this point Elizabeth Bogert interpolated, “ — and the first time it returned, it knocked off mamma’s eyeglasses”.

If you ask the Wood family today what they think of its celebrated head in connection with some specific scientific achievement or some specific new piece of deviltry, their answers will be brilliant, voluble, and free. If they’re feeling at their best — and if it’s about anything in particular — you’ll get all the adjectives and epithets in the thesaurus — sometimes in pride and praise, sometimes filled with a sort of oh-my-god exasperation.

But if you ask the Wood family what they think of him in terms of wider generality, their words fail to flow so freely. He’s the head of the clan, he’s the husband and father, he’s famous, and has their profound respect as well as love. But this doesn’t alter the fact that they’ve got a sort of super Huck Finn in the house, which is perhaps never boring but not always restful. After they’d suffered from one of his pranks last summer, his daughter Margaret (Mrs. Victor White) exclaimed, “… my so and so and so and so… absurd and ridiculous father!” If you or anybody outside the clan used one of those adjectives about him, I can assure you that this same Margaret, or any of the rest of them, would skin you alive and nail your hide to the barn door.

The “Aunt Sally” who wanted to “adopt and civilize” Huck Finn could be voluble too… in particular… when it came to any particular thing Huck had done, but not even the genius of Mark Twain could express her feelings toward Huck in general. They went too deep for words. When it comes to the Wood family’s feelings toward him — they’re all in the same boat with Huck’s Aunt Sally… and so — may I add in conclusion? — is your humble and obedient servant, the author.

Bibliography of Scientific Publications of R.W.Wood

1. The Kingdom of the Dream. Experience with Hasheesh. New York Herald, 1889; also in William James' Psychology, Vol. 2

2. Apparatus for Rapid and Prolonged Washing of Precipitates. Jour. Anal. Chem., Vol. IV, Part 4, 1890

3. Combustion of Gas Jets Under Pressure. Amer. Jour. Science, 41 (1891), 477

4. Effects of Pressure on Ice. Amer. Jour. Science, 41 (1891), 30

5. The Action of Salts on Acids. Amer. Chem. Jour., 15 (1893), 663

6. The Affinity Constants of Weak Acids and the Hydrolysis of Salts. Amer. Chem. Jour., 16 (1894), 313

7. Eine einfache Methode, die Dauer von Torsionsschwingungen zu bestimmen. Wied. Ann. 56 (1895), 171

8. Demonstration of Caustics. American Jour. Science, 50 (1895), 301

9. On the Dissociation Degree of Some Electrolytes at 0°. Phil. Mag., 41 (1896), 117; Zeit. f. phys. Chem., 18, (1895), 521

10. The Duration of the Flash of Exploding Oxyhydrogen. Phil. Mag., 41 (1895), 120

11. A Duplex Mercurial Air-Pump. Phil. Mag., 41 (1896), 387; Wied. Ann., 58 (1896), 206

12. Note on "Focus Tubes" for Producing X-rays. Phil. Mag., 41 (1896), 382

13. Ueber eine neue Form der Quecksilbe luftpumpe und die Erhaltung eines guten Vacuums bei Rontgen'schen Versuchen. Wied. Ann., 58 (1896), 205

14. On the Absorption Spectrum of Solutions of Iodine and Bromine Above the Critical Temperature. Phil. Mag., 41 (1896), 423; Zs. phys. Chem., 19 (1896), 689

15. Experimental Determination of the Temperature in Geissler Tubes. Phys. Rev., 4 (1896), 191; Wied. Ann., 59, 238 (1896)

16. The X-ray Arc. Electrician, 38 (1896), 289, 371

17. Lecture-Room Demonstration of Orbits of Bodies Under the Action of a Central Attraction. Phys. Rev., 4 (1896), 413

18. Demonstration of the Doppler Effect. Phys. Rev., 4 (1896), 504

19. A New Form of Cathode Discharge and the Production of X-rays, Together with Some Notes on Diffraction. Phys. Rev., 5 (1897), 1

20. Apparatus for Illustrating Potential Gradient. Phys. Rev., 6 (1898), 164

21. Apparatus for Showing the Conductivity of Gases. Phys. Rev., 6 (1898), 165

22. Phase-Reversal Zone-Plates and Diffraction Telescope. Phil. Mag., 45 (1898), 511