“Up until the work of Imes, there was doubt about the universal applicability of the quantum theory to radiation in all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum,” Plyler said.
His findings were consistent with previous estimates, but it was Imes’s work that allowed him to make a definitive calculation.Įarle Plyler, a pioneer of molecular and infrared spectroscopy, reflected on the importance of Imes’s accomplishments in a 1974 symposium talk at the Fisk Infrared Institute’s 25th Anniversary Celebration. The following year, German physicist Adolf Kratzer used Imes’s data in conjunction with his own theory to determine bond lengths between the atoms in each of the diatomic molecules featured in the study. His findings were published in 1919 in the Astrophysical Journal as an extended paper. Imes is also responsible for providing the first direct evidence for the influence of different isotopes on the spectra of molecules. His findings provided the first detailed spectra of three diatomic molecules (molecules containing two atoms): hydrogen bromide (HBr), hydrogen chloride (HCI), and hydrogen fluoride (HF), ultimately verifying the emerging concepts around rotational and vibrational energy levels in quantum theory. Imes used the design of the spectrometer and the data it measured as a key part of his dissertation, and his work opened the door to a field of research that had not yet been explored at that depth. During his time in Ann Arbor, Imes focused his research on designing, building, and using a high-resolution infrared spectrometer to study the structure of atoms and molecules, one of its earliest applications. Imes continued his education in physics at the University of Michigan as a graduate fellow under his advisor, Harrison Randall (M.S. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in science, and in the years that followed, Imes taught math and science in a variety of roles before completing his master’s degree, also from Fisk. Now, 100 years later, we remember Imes as a scholar and trailblazer who changed the course of physics.īorn in Memphis to college-educated parents, Imes graduated from an Alabama high school before returning to Tennessee to pursue a college education at Fisk University, a historically Black college. The second was the University of Michigan’s own Elmer Imes in 1918. Edward Bouchet became the first, completing his doctoral degree at Yale University in 1876. Forty-two years passed between the first and second Black men to earn a Ph.D.
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