Daniel Webster Hering

Who was Daniel Webster Hering?

Daniel Webster Hering, Ph.D. was an American physicist and university dean. He was born in Washington County, Maryland, and graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School. He occupied positions at Johns Hopkins, Western Maryland College, Western University of Pennsylvania, and NYU, where he was dean after 1902. He was the author of Essentials of Physics for College Students. Hering is credited with taking the first human x-ray in the United States on February 5, 1896 at Bellevue Hospital.

Hering also was one of the original citations for Martin Gardner in his work Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science in which it is argued he founded the modern scientific skepticism movement. Hering's work Foibles and Fallacies of Science is considered one of the key original texts on matters concerning pseudoscience.