Editing Richard Threlkeld Cox

{{Infobox scientist
| name          = Richard Threlkeld Cox
| image         = 
| alt           = 
| caption       = 
| birth_name    = 
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1898|08|02}}
| birth_place   = 
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|1991|05|02|1898|08|05}} 
| death_place   = 
| nationality   = American
| other_names   = 
| education     = [[Johns Hopkins University]]
| workplaces    = [[New York University]]<br>[[Johns Hopkins University]]
| known_for     = [[Cox's theorem]]
| notable_works = 
}}

'''Richard Threlkeld Cox''' (August 5, 1898 – May 2, 1991) was a professor of [[physics]] at [[Johns Hopkins University]], known for [[Cox's theorem]] relating to the foundations of [[probability]].<ref name="tribus">{{citation|contribution=An appreciation of Richard Threlkeld Cox|title=Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering (4-9 August 2001, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)|first=Myron|last=Tribus|author-link=Myron Tribus|series=AIP Conf. Proc.|volume=617|pages=3–20|year=2002|doi=10.1063/1.1477035}}.</ref>

==Biography==
He was born in [[Portland, Oregon]], the son of attorney Lewis Cox and Elinor Cox. After Lewis Cox died, Elinor Cox married John Latané, who became a professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1913. In 1915 Richard enrolled at Johns Hopkins University to study physics, but his studies were cut short when he was drafted for [[World War I]]. He stayed in the US after being drafted and returned to Johns Hopkins University after the war, completing his BA in 1920. He earned his PhD in 1924; his dissertation was ''A Study of Pfund's Pressure Gauge''.<ref name="tribus"/>

He taught at [[New York University]] (NYU) from 1924 to 1943, before returning to Johns Hopkins to teach. He studied probability theory, the scattering of electrons, and the discharges of [[electric eel]]s.<ref name="tribus"/> Richard Cox's most important work was [[Cox's theorem]].<ref>{{citation
 | last = Van Horn | first = Kevin S.
 | doi = 10.1016/S0888-613X(03)00051-3
 | issue = 1
 | journal = International Journal of Approximate Reasoning
 | mr = 2017777
 | pages = 3–24
 | title = Constructing a logic of plausible inference: a guide to Cox's theorem
 | volume = 34
 | year = 2003| doi-access = 
 }}.</ref>

His wife, [[Shelby Shackleford]] (1899 [[Halifax, Virginia]] – 1987), whom he married in 1926, was an accomplished artist and illustrated ''Electric Eel Calling'', a book on electric eels.<ref name="tribus"/>

He died on May 2, 1991. His doctoral students include [[Carl T. Chase]] and [[Clifford Shull]].

==Cox and parity violation==
According to [[T. D. Lee]] and [[C. N. Yang]], [[parity violation]] implies that electrons produced by [[β decay]] should be longitudinally polarized.<ref name="Trigg2013">{{cite book|author=Trigg, George L.|title=Landmark Experiments in Twentieth-Century Physics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fHzCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT210|date=21 March 2013|publisher=Courier Corporation|isbn=978-0-486-15120-5|page=210}}</ref> In 1959, [[Lee Grodzins]] indicated how a 1928 experiment by R. T. Cox, C. G. McIlwraith, and B. Kurrelmeyer on double scattering of β rays from radium<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1073/pnas.14.7.544|pmid=16587360|pmc=1085607|title=Apparent Evidence of Polarization in a Beam of β-Rays|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=14|issue=7|pages=544–549|year=1928|last1=Cox|first1=R. T.|last2=McIlwraith|first2=C. G.|last3=Kurrelmeyer|first3=B.|bibcode=1928PNAS...14..544C |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vUgDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA37|title = Physics: The Ultimate Adventure|isbn = 9783319316918|last1 = Barrett|first1 = Ross|last2 = Delsanto|first2 = Pier Paolo|last3 = Tartaglia|first3 = Angelo|page=37|date = 2016-05-07| publisher=Springer }}</ref> confirms the polarization effect predicted by Lee and Yang.<ref name=Grodzins>{{cite journal|last1=Grodzins|first1=L.|author-link=Lee Grodzins|title=The history of double scattering of electrons and evidence for the polarization of beta rays|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=45|issue=3|year=1959|pages=399–405|issn=0027-8424|doi=10.1073/pnas.45.3.399|pmid=16590399|pmc=222574|bibcode=1959PNAS...45..399G |doi-access=free}}</ref> [[Carl T. Chase]] in 1929 and 1930 performed experiments confirming the 1928 experiment by Cox, McIlwraith, and Kurrelmeyer.<ref name=Grodzins/>

===Louis Witten interview===
'''[[Louis Witten|Witten]]:'''
... I wanted to tell you something about Richard Cox. You mentioned Richard Cox. He did a lot of things, but he also did some experiments in [[condensed matter physics]]. He discovered an anomaly which wasn't consistent with physics. It couldn't be explained. It wasn't at all consistent, and he was told his experiment was wrong, and he knew that his experiment was right. So he published it, and it was an anomaly in the literature. Some years later, it was discovered that parity wasn't conserved, and his anomaly was non-parity. It's well known now by many people that his experiment was the first experiment that would have shown parity wasn't conserved if they had interpreted it correctly.<br/>
'''[[Dean Rickles|Rickles]]:'''
But he didn't give that interpretation; he just thought there was something strange.<br/>
'''Witten:'''
That's right. But he knew that his experiment was right and that people were trying to tell him that his experiment was wrong.<ref>{{cite web|title=Interview of Louis Witten by Dean Rickles and Donald Salisbury on 2011 March 17|website=Oral History Interviews, American Institute of Physics|date=19 November 2015|url=https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/36985}}</ref>

== Selected works==
* Cox, R. T., "Of Inference and Inquiry - An Essay in Inductive Logic", In The Maximum Entropy Formalism, Ed. Levine and Tribus, M.I.T. Press, 1979.
* {{Cite journal | last = Cox | first = R. T. | author-link = Richard Threlkeld Cox| doi = 10.1119/1.1990764 | title = Probability, Frequency and Reasonable Expectation | journal = American Journal of Physics | volume = 14 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–10 | year = 1946 |bibcode = 1946AmJPh..14....1C | url=http://jimbeck.caltech.edu/summerlectures/references/ProbabilityFrequencyReasonableExpectation.pdf}}
* ''The Algebra of Probable Inference'', Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, (1961).<ref name="Fabens1961">{{cite journal|last1=Fabens|first1=A. J.|title=Review of ''The Algebra of Probable Inference'' by Richard T. Cox|journal=Science|volume=134|issue=3478|year=1961|page=551|issn=0036-8075|doi=10.1126/science.134.3478.551}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{MathGenealogy |id=157934 }}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Richard Threlkeld}}
[[Category:1898 births]]
[[Category:1991 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicists]]
[[Category:American statisticians]]
[[Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty]]
[[Category:Scientists from Portland, Oregon]]
[[Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni]]
[[Category:New York University faculty]]
[[Category:American military personnel of World War I]]