Article

James Gordon MacGregor

Published Online February 7, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

James Gordon MacGregor, physicist (b at Halifax 31 Mar 1852; d at Edinburgh, Scot 21 May 1913). Educated at Dalhousie University, MacGregor was awarded a Gilchrist scholarship in 1871 and studied under Peter Guthrie Tait at Edinburgh and Gustav Wiedeman at Leipzig.

MacGregor, James Gordon

James Gordon MacGregor, physicist (b at Halifax 31 Mar 1852; d at Edinburgh, Scot 21 May 1913). Educated at Dalhousie University, MacGregor was awarded a Gilchrist scholarship in 1871 and studied under Peter Guthrie Tait at Edinburgh and Gustav Wiedeman at Leipzig. When he received a doctorate from London in 1876, he had already had 4 papers published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In 1879 Dalhousie offered him its newly established chair of physics. During his 22 years there he published about 60 papers on several aspects of the electrical and thermal properties of solutions and was elected to both the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He helped found the ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA and was a charter member. In 1888 he published An Elementary Treatise on Kinematics and Dynamics. He succeeded P.G. Tait at Edinburgh in 1901.