Albert Potter Wills

Who was Albert Potter Wills?

Albert Potter Wills was an American physicist who researched magnetic materials and was the PhD advisor of the Nobel Prize winner Isidor Isaac Rabi.

During his career he investigated magnetic susceptibilities, magnetic shielding, magnetostriction, conduction of electricity through mercury vapor, and hydrodynamics. He also wrote a textbook on vector analysis.

Wills received his PhD from Clark University in 1897 under Arthur Gordon Webster with a thesis entitled: On the susceptibility of diamagnetic and weakly magnetic substances.

During 1898–1899 Wills worked at the University of Göttingen and the University of Berlin. During 1899–1902 he was at Bryn Mawr College and 1902–1903 at the Cooper Hewitt Laboratory. His final appointment, 1903–1937, was at Columbia University.