Person

Bieler, Etienne Samuel, 1895-

• Bieler, Etienne Samuel, 1895-1929

1895-1929

Physicist Etienne Bieler was born in Switzerland and came to Montréal with his family at the age of thirteen. He obtained his B.Sc. in mathematics and physics from McGill in 1915, and during the latter part of the First World War, worked in the Anti-Submarine Division of the British Admiralty. Returning to McGill after the war, Bieler earned an M.Sc. in Physics (1920) and won a scholarship to Caius College, Cambridge, where he joined the Cavendish Laboratory as a research student. There he worked with Sir Ernest Rutherford on the Alpha-particle bombardment of the atom. Bieler's important insights into the laws of force around the atomic nucleus were presented in his Ph.D. thesis (1923). Upon his return to Montréal, Bieler was appointed Assistant Professor of physics at McGill, and developed a new interest in applied geophysics. He tested his method for electrical detection of mineral ores in Rouyn, Québec. In 1928 he took a leave of absence from McGill to become deputy director of a government-sponsored mining expedition in Australia, where he died after a brief bout of pneumonia in 1929.