Charles S. Slichter

Charles Sumner Slichter (1864–1946) was a mathematician and physicist. His most notable scholarly contribution focused on hydrogeology where he developed a method of quantifying the velocity of ground-water underflow in river valleys. This method employed ammonium chloride that would be placed in an upstream, i.e., the upgradient, well and detected in three observation wells a short distance away, i.e., the downgradient.

Family

Slichter was the husband of Mary Byrne Slichter and was the father of economist Sumner Slichter and geophysicist Louis B. Slichter, industrialist Allen Slichter and Donald Slichter, the grandfather of physicist Charles Pence Slichter, and the great grandfather of musician Jacob Slichter

Books

• Galileo, 1642-1942 : an essay commemorating the tercentenary of Galileo : read before a joint meeting of the Wisconsin Chapter of Sigma Xi and the Dept. of Mathematics on November 17, 1942
• Science in a Tavern: Essays and Diversions on Science in the Making, University of Wisconsin Press, 1938
• Four-place logarithmic tables for rapid computation arranged by Charles S. Slichter, New York: Macmillan & Co. (1906)
• The tidal and other problems (1909)
• Elementary mathematical analysis, a text book for first year college students (1914)
• Observations on the ground waters of Rio Grande Valley (1905)
• Field measurements of the rate of movement of underground waters (1905)
• The motions of underground waters (1902)
• The underflow in Arkansas Valley in western Kansas (1906)
• The underflow of the South Platte valley (1906)
• Theoretical investigation of the motion of ground waters (1899)