Ewing, Sir James Alfred [key], 1855–1935, Scottish engineer and physicist. As professor at Tokyo (1878–83), Dundee (1883–90), and Cambridge (1890–1903), he helped establish programs in engineering. Ewing was director of naval education in Great Britain (1903–16) and was knighted in 1911. He was principal and vice chancellor of the Univ. of Edinburgh from 1916 to 1929. Ewing's researches in magnetism led him to observe the phenomenon of hysteresis (a term that he coined), and he investigated the crystalline structure of several important metals. He was one of the first Europeans to study earthquakes in Japan. His works include Treatise on Earthquake Measurement (1883), The Strength of Materials (1899), and Thermodynamics for Engineers (1920).
See biography by L. F. Bates (1946).
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