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Robert Williams Wood (1868-1955) was one of America's leading physicists. He won the Rumford Premium and many other scientific distinctions. Encyclopedia Britannica says he was John Hopkins professor of physics and later Research Professor in Experimental Optics. He made numerous fundamental discoveries in supersonics and resonance radiation.
But like Lewis Carroll, Wood had a second personality. Those who were not his friends would have been surprised to discover that his intimate friends knew him as a humorist almost without equal. Wood's daughter Margaret Wood White has written an introduction to this edition. She says that her father's serious and important contributions to scientific journals are numbered by the hundreds, yet "He devoted many hours of happy relaxation to the creation of this entertaining book of which many thousands were printed. More important than humour itself is the capacity to appreciate it. I am indeed happy that this generation can also