Dick Davisson, retired UW physicist, dies at 81
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Surely Mr. Davisson, who recently died, would earn his doctorate degree and become an award-winning physicist. Indeed, during the former University of Washington professor's career in high-energy physics, he contributed to some of the most important physics projects of modern times — including the Manhattan Project and the world's most advanced particle accelerator in Switzerland.
But much like the infinitesimally lightweight but incomprehensibly energetic particles he studied, his life was one of quirks that didn't always fit comfortably into a classroom or a bureaucracy.
He loved to sit and work through intriguing problems with colleagues or explain the principles of physics to other customers of the Big Time Brewery & Alehousein the University District, where he is remembered as "a prominent guest lecturer."
The pub plans to install a small plaque in Mr. Davisson's memory. "You could say we're endowing a barstool in his name," quipped bartender and brewer Drew Cluley.
Richard Joseph Davisson, born Dec. 29, 1922, died June 15 at the age of 81. He was the son of Clinton and Charlotte Davisson. His father was a Nobel winner as was his maternal uncle, Sir Owen Richardson.
"He was very bright. People who knew him a little bit realized that he just was quicker and sharper and could do things better than practically anybody else," said retired UW physics professor Robert Williams, who met Mr. Davisson at Los Alamos, N.M., where they worked during World War II on the effort to build a nuclear bomb.
Williams recruited Mr. Davisson to teach at the UW.
A graduate of MIT, Mr. Davisson did graduate work at Cornell but never completed his doctoral dissertation.
"People said, 'If he had just written another paragraph ... ,' " said Betty Davisson, his wife of 40 years. But Mr. Davisson wasn't satisfied with the data in his doctoral project and eventually threw away the boxes that he called his "thesis crap."
Colleagues recalled Mr. Davisson as a man more interested in solving a problem than in documenting its solution and getting his name atop a research paper. UW physicists often asked him for advice when they encountered research problems, physics professor Henry Lubatti recalled.
Mr. Davisson was a member of the UW team that designed a system for detecting a subatomic particle known as a muon for the United States' planned Superconducting Supercollider. After the government scrapped that project, the team was recruited by CERN, a small-particle lab, to provide the system to Europe's state-of-the-art particle accelerator.
He retired from the UW in 2000, at the age of 77.
Mr. Davisson's most widely known words were written down by his son and then spread widely over the Internet: "There are no physicists in the hottest parts of Hell, because the existence of a 'hottest part' implies a temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of Hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible."
In addition to his wife, Mr. Davisson is survived by his son, Gordon Davisson, of Seattle and his partner, Berit Benson; and by his sister Elizabeth Davisson of Charlottesville, Va.
A memorial celebration will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Commons of Mary Gates Hall on the UW campus. Friends will hold a "good riddance party" from 6 to 8 p.m. July 7 at the Big Time Brewery & Alehouse.
Seattle Times staff reporter Diane Brooks contributed to this story. Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com