Richard Lee Childers

Richard Lee Childers, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina (USC) who had a lifelong interest in the history of physics and was an avid collector of antique physics apparatus, died in Columbia, South Carolina, of lung cancer on 19 February 2000.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on 10 December 1930, Richard obtained three degrees in physics: a BA from Presbyterian College in 1953, an MS from the University of Tennessee in 1956, and a PhD from Tennessee in 1962. In 1963, he became an assistant professor of physics at USC and then an associate professor in 1966. He served from 1968 to 1970 as the director of the USC honors program before the present Honors College was established (in 1977).

From the mid-1960s until the early 1970s, Richard collaborated with other members of the USC intermediate energy group, first on the Cosmotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Because of a lack of funds, however, the group had to bootleg time on the Cosmotron, borrowing the University of Rochester's spectrometer--which was installed on the beam line at the Cosmotron--and its ancillary electronic equipment when beam time was assigned. The group later collaborated on the cyclotron at NASA's Space Radiation Effects Laboratory in Newport News, Virginia. One time the group members were told they could run on the cyclotron if they went there immediately. So they loaded their equipment onto a colleague's plane, flew up to the cyclotron in Virginia, and were running within four hours.

A permanent faculty member at USC, Richard conducted research as a "suitcase physicist," traveling to laboratories for short intervals when beam times were available for specific experiments. From 1972 to 1978, he worked at USC on problems connected with acoustics. His research in high-energy physics took him to Europe in the late 1970s, where he worked with Colgate W. Darden III on the Argus Detector at the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY). This effort represented the first high-energy experimental research performed by the university's department of physics and astronomy. In 1982, Richard was promoted to professor. He continued his work on Argus until 1986.

In 1988, Richard worked on the Čerenkov detector at Fermilab. However, he devoted most of his available time during the mid- to late 1980s to writing, mostly as a coauthor. He published more than 150 research articles, but is perhaps best known for his coauthorship with one of us (E.R.J) of Contemporary College Physics (McGraw-Hill, 2001), a textbook that has been widely used in noncalculus introductory physics. Many of the photographs in the text were taken by Richard, and remain as a reminder of his interest in optics and his skill as a photographer.

Richard finished his research at Fermilab in 1992. In 1993, USC honors students named him outstanding professor of science. He retired from USC in 1996, but continued to work there part time until his death.

Richard had a special regard for physics demonstrations, which was heightened by his interest in magic and an understanding of the showmanship involved. He once developed a bed of nails at a 1972 workshop on physics demonstrations. That workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, was held at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, by Richard B. "Dick" Minnix and Rae Carpenter Jr, who were members of the physics faculty at the Virginia Military Institute. Anyone who has tried lying on a bed of nails knows the great sense of relief, on lowering himself or herself onto the bed, that physics really works! A member of ring 105 (a local branch) of the International Brotherhood of Magicians in Columbia, South Carolina, Richard carried his showmanship into the classroom.

Throughout his career, Richard actively promoted physics education in the high schools. Early on, he arranged for high-school students to visit the university, where they were given tours of the research laboratories and a demonstration lecture on physics. His efforts culminated with his organization of the Midway Physics Day at the South Carolina State Fair following his retirement. His calm, commonsense perspective on departmental matters will be missed by his colleagues.