Rayleigh, Lord

Rayleigh, Lord ( John William Strutt; 1842–1919) British physicist, who built a private laboratory after working at Cambridge University. His work in this laboratory included the discovery of Rayleigh scattering of electromagnetic radiation. He also worked in acoustics, electricity, and optics, as well as collaborating with William Ramsay on the discovery of argon. He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize for physics.