Coblentz is remembered today mainly for his contributions to physics and astronomy, he also had interests in bioluminescence, atmospheric ozone, and, perhaps surprisingly, parapsychology. He appears to have brought the same energy to the latter field as he did to his other areas of interest. Honors Coblentz was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1930. Among the awards Coblentz received were the 1911 Howard N. Potts Medal from the Franklin Institute, the 1920 Janssen Medal from the French Academy of Sciences, and the 1937 Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1945, shortly after retiring, Coblentz received the Frederic Ives Medal from the Optical Society of America. The Coblentz Society, dedicated to the understanding and application of vibrational spectroscopy, is named in his honor, as is the Coblentz Medal. Coblentz was given membership card number 1 from the Society. Coblentz died just before his 1905 work on infrared spectroscopy was reprinted, nearly 60 years after its first publication. Family and personal life In his autobiography, From the Life of a Researcher (1951), William Coblentz described his typical day as long hours of laboratory research followed by evenings spent on data analysis and writing papers. This left little time for socializing, and so it is not unexpected that Coblentz was over 50 before ever marrying. He wed Catherine Emma Cate of Vermont on June 10, 1924, and it is said that they spent their honeymoon in Flagstaff, Arizona while Coblentz was at the Lowell Observatory measuring planetary temperatures. Catherine Cate Coblentz achieved success as a writer of children's book, worked for a time at the National Bureau of Standards, and was instrumental in raising money to build the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library in Washington, DC. William Coblentz reportedly was plagued by periods of poor health, but he lived nearly 90 years. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC alongside his wife and an infant daughter. References Further reading A Physical Study of the Firefly, by William W. Coblentz, 1912 Man's Place in a Superphysical World, by William W. Coblentz, 1955 (concerning parapsychology) Journal of the Optical Society of America, 1936, volume 36, number 2, pp. 61 – 71 (The presentation ceremony, and Coblentz's accompanying lecture, for the Ives Medal, along with a list of Coblentz's scientific publications.) Applied Optics (November, 1963), commemorative issue with extensive material on Coblentz's scientific work