Joseph William Tanch

Emeritus Physics Professor Dies at 71

JOSEPH WILLIAM TANCH, Emeritus Professor of Physics, who died suddenly of a heart ailment at his home in Hanover on January 17, was born in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, October 10, 1878. He had retired from his teaching duties with the College a year ago last June, and continued a busy life up to the day of his death.

From his youth, he expected and wanted to be a teacher, and received his college preparatory training at Pictou Academy, Nova Scotia. Following his graduation from Acadia University with a B.S. degree in 1912, where he took honors in mathematics, he became principal of the Annapolis County Academy in Nova Scotia. In 1915 he came to the United States to do his graduate work in physics, and received his Ph.D. degree from Yale in 1919. While there he was the recipient of the Ellen Battell Eldridge Fellowship. In 1929 Dartmouth awarded him an honorary M.A. degree at the time of his promotion to full professor.

Throughout his student years Professor Tanch was chosen for scholarship awards, and his quick and penetrating grasp of his subject won him the respect of other scholars. He belonged in the vanguard of those who anticipated the rapid expansion of physics as a science. In 1930 he studied at Cambridge University, taking work with leading English scientists on the subject of the "Newer Physics." He also wrote several articles upon spectroscopic subjects which appeared in scientific publications.

Joining the Dartmouth faculty in 1919, Professor Tanch began his first of thirty years of teaching here as an instructor in the Department of Mathematics. The following year he became a member of the Physics Department. He conducted courses in Physics 1-2; general physics, at the next level above Physics 1-2; and also taught an advanced course in light. He became an assistant professor in 1920, a full professor in 1929. He was outstandingly successful in getting across difficult material with clarity, and in understanding the student's viewpoint in the learning process. Over a period of years many who took his courses have gone out to do research, or teach physics. To quote from one of the many letters from former students received after his death, "I remember him as well or better than anyone else I ever studied under: a fine man, bursting with vitality and wit and sparkle and imagination; it was a pleasure to hear him lecture or to have him show you what you were doing wrong in a laboratory experiment. Physics is not my field now, but I do not think I learned more about thinking, logic, discipline, and free enquiry in any other course And I, for one, will always remember him as a young man with a young and exciting and unregimented mind."

Tribute to Professor Tanch was also paid by Prof. Leslie F. Murch, chairman of the Department of Physics. He said:

"In the death of Professor Tanch, so soon after his retirement, we have lost a colleague who will be remembered for the friendly cooperation and courtesy extended to all with whom he came in contact. His sympathetic attitude toward the student beginning the study of Physics, his patience in locating their difficulties and his skill in the remedial measures to be taken, were very valuable assets to the work of the department. We had hoped that the benefit of his long experience would be available to us for years to come. His companionship is sorely missed."

Professor Tanch was married in 1913 to the former Edith Morse, also of Nova Scotia, who survives him. There are two daughters, Katharine Tanch of Hanover and Mrs. A. Hamilton Rowan Jr., wife of A. Hamilton Rowan Jr. '44, of New York City, as well as two grandchildren, Archibald Hamilton Rowan III and R. Gavin Hamilton Rowan.

Active in civic and church affairs in Hanover, Professor Tanch, at the time of his death was a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Optical Society of America, the Dartmouth College Scientific Association, and the Gamma Delta Chi Fraternity.

Services were held in St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hanover and burial was in Pine Knoll Cemetery, Hanover.

JOSEPH WILLIAM TANCH, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, who died suddenly in Hanover, Jan. 17.