John

John Backus

#110,835
Most Influential Person Across History

Lithuanian American physicist and acoustician

John Backus 's Academic­Influence.com Rankings

John Backus
Physics
#5893
Historical Rank
physics Degrees
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Why Is John Backus Influential?

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According to Wikipedia, John Graham Backus was a Lithuanian American physicist and acoustician. John Backus was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, where he studied at Reed College, receiving a BA in 1932. He went on to graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he did research in nuclear physics at the Radiation Laboratory under Ernest Lawrence. He received an MA in 1936, and a PhD in 1940. In 1945 he was appointed professor of physics at the University of Southern California, a post he retained until his retirement in 1980. During the early part of his career, his research focussed on gaseous discharges in strong magnetic fields. He was also a musician, trained as a performer on piano, bassoon, clarinet and other woodwinds and received the degree of MMus in conducting from the University of Southern California in 1959. In his later career he turned increasingly to the study of musical acoustics, particularly those of wind instruments and organ pipes. In 1969 he published The Acoustical Foundations of Music, a book which became a standard text for introductory courses in musical acoustics. A second edition appeared in 1977. He received the Silver Medal of the Acoustical Society of America in 1986. Backus died in Los Angeles in 1988.

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John Backus 's Published Works

Number of citations in a given year to any of this author's works
Total number of citations to an author for the works they published in a given year. This highlights publication of the most important work(s) by the author
19501960197019800255075100125150175200225

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