Francis Weston Sears (October 1, 1898 – November 12, 1975) was an American physicist. He was a professor of physics at MIT for 35 years before moving to Dartmouth College in 1956.^[1] At Dartmouth, Sears was the Appleton Professor of Physics.^[2][3] He is best known for co-authoring University Physics, an introductory physics textbook, with Mark Zemansky. The book, first published in 1949, is often referred to as "Sears and Zemansky", although Hugh Young became a coauthor in 1973.

In 1932 he collaborated with Peter Debye in the discovery of what is now called the Debye–Sears effect, the diffraction of light by ultrasonic waves.^[4][5]

Sears was a fellow of the Optical Society of America, and was active in the American Association of Physics Teachers, serving as its treasurer from 1950 to 1958, followed by successive one-year terms as president-elect and president.^[6] He retired to Norwich, Vermont and died in Hanover, New Hampshire, of a stroke on November 12, 1975.^[7][8][6]

• 1961 — Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers^[2][9]

• Sears, Francis W. (1935). An Introduction to Optics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
• Sears, Francis W. (1946). Electricity and Magnetism. Reading, Massachusetts. Addison-Wesley^[10]
• Sears, Francis; Mark Zemansky; et al. (1948). College Physics (1st ed.). Addison Wesley.^[11]
• Sears, Francis W. (1950). An Introduction to Thermodynamics, the Kinetic Theory of Gases and Statistical Mechanics. Addison Wesley. 2nd edition, 1953^[12][13]
• Sears, Francis W. (1950). Mechanics, heat and sound. Cambridge, Massachusetts. Addison Wesley.
• Sears, Francis (1958). Mechanics, Wave Motion, and Heat (1st ed.). Addison Wesley.^[14]
• Francis W. Sears (1975). Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, and Statistical Thermodynamics. Addison Wesley. ISBN 020106894X.^[15]

Wikiquote has quotations related to Francis Sears.

• MIT Physics Department