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Arthur Rucker

British physicist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ4800689 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sir Arthur William Rucker (or Rücker) (23 October 1845, Clapham Park, London, England – 1 November 1915, Yattendon, Berkshire) was a British physicist.

Education and career

Rucker gained his BA at Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1871, and was a Fellow there from 1871 to 1876. He was Professor of Physics, and the first Cavendish Professor at Yorkshire College, Leeds from 1874 to 1885. Rucker was then a Professor of Physics at the Royal College of Science from 1886 to 1901, when he left to become Principal of the University of London.

He received the honorary degree Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) from the University of Cambridge in May 1902, and from the University of Oxford in June 1902.

Royal Society

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1884. He jointly gave the Royal Society's Bakerian Lecture in 1889, and was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1891: "For his researches on liquid films, and his contributions to our knowledge of terrestrial magnetism". He served as Secretary of the Royal Society from 1896 to 1901. For his services, he was knighted in the 1902 Coronation Honours, receiving the accolade from King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October that year.

Lectures

In 1889 Rucker was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on electricity.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Arthur Rucker” is british physicist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Arthur, Rucker and British, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1845, 1915, 1871, 1876—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1845-10-23. For this dossier, Arthur, Rucker and British is the immediate research focus.
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The phrase “british physicist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4800689. VIAF identifies the subject as 15550409. The Library of Congress control number is no2003095783. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1845, 1915, 1871 and 1876.

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This entry incorporates text from “Arthur Rucker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.