Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

GEORGE KIMBALL BURGESS 239
tions in the field of high temperatures, he rewrote the book completely, making
extensive revisions and additions.54
In 1903, following a year as instructor at the University of California,
Dr. Burgess came to the Bureau as an assistant physicist ip. the heat and ther-
mometry division. His first assignment was an investigation of the use of
optical pyrometers in industry. Not long after, he began the work with
Dr. Waidner, chief of the division, that was to lead to the present internation-
ally adopted Waidner-Burgess standard of light. in 1913, soon after the
Bureau undertook its investigation of railroad track and wheel failures—
largely a problem in the physics of metallurgy, concerning the thermal behav-
ior of metals in the manufacturing process—Dr. Burgess organized the
Bureau's division of metallurgy. It pleased him later to say that he had
never had a course in metallurgy in his life, which was quite possible, since
it was so new a field that there may not have been half a dozen metallurgists
in the United States at that time.55
Ten years after the establishment of the division, Dr. Burgess, as a
result of more than a hundred technical papers on heat measurement and
metallurgy, had won international recognition. His staff comprised some
50 experts, largely trained by him, inquiring into almost every aspect of
modern metallurgical technology, from the melting and casting of metals and
alloys to their physical and chemical testing.
Few men ever came to know Burgess intimately, either as division
chief or Director of the Bureau. A sociable man in working hours, he was
nevertheless reserved, and as impeccable in manner as he was in dress. He
has been described by those who worked under him as "quiet," "warm-
hearted," "very pleasant," "a nice person," yet a man "you couldn't get to
know." 56 Recreation is said to have meant to him a good book—preferably
a good detective or mystery story—and a plentiful supply of tobacco, or a
long drive in an open car.57 Of his private life little more was known. In
1901 he had married, in Paris, the daughter of a French Protestant family,
but neither he nor his wife was gregarious and seldom entertained. They
had no children.
Lyman J. Briggs and Wallace R. Brode, "George Kimball Burgess, 1874—1932," Nat!.
Acad. Sci., Biographical Memoirs, 30, 57 (1957). See Henri L. Le Chatelier, High
Temperature Measurements, tr. G. K. Burgess (New York: J. Wiley, 1901); rev, and
enl. 2d ed., 1904; rewritten as G. K. Burgess and H. Le Chatelier, The Measurement of
High Temperatures (Wiley, 1912).
Letter, Burgess to president, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Mar. 21, 1924 (NBS
Box 77, IDP).
Nail. Acad. Sci., Biographical Memoirs, above; interviews with Dr. Briggs (Nov.
1, 1961), Mrs. William Meggers (May 8, 1962), and Dr. Kasson S. Gibson (June 1,
1962).
L. J. Briggs, "George Kimball Burgess," Science, 76, 46 (1932).