Richard Threlkeld Cox

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.

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.

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. 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 confirms the polarization effect predicted by Lee and Yang. Carl T. Chase in 1929 and 1930 performed experiments confirming the 1928 experiment by Cox, McIlwraith, and Kurrelmeyer.

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.

The Algebra of Probable Inference, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, (1961).