R(obert) Bruce Lindsay's January 1, 1900, birth date hailed the beginning of the last year of the 19th century. At the age of 20, he received both a BA and an MS in physics from
Brown University. Before receiving his Ph.D. for
atomic models of
alkali metals from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1924, he spent the 1922–23 academic year as a Fellow of
The American-Scandinavian Foundation at the
University of Copenhagen under
Niels Bohr and
Hans Kramers. Lindsay and his wife Rachel translated
Kramers’ book,
The Atom and the Bohr Theory of its Structure, in 1923, receiving approximately $125, on which they toured Europe. Lindsay went to
Yale University in 1923 as instructor in physics, and was promoted to assistant professor in 1927. He returned to
Brown in 1930 as associate professor of theoretical physics, and was named Hazard Professor of Physics in 1936. He acted as chairman of the physics department at
Brown from 1934 until he became dean of the graduate school in 1954. Lindsay received the
ASA Gold Medal in 1962, before retiring as dean of the graduate school in 1966 and from teaching in 1970. He died March 2, 1985, in
Newport, Rhode Island. ==Scientific contributions==