Richard Henry Bolt (April 22, 1911 – January 13, 2002) was an American physics professor at MIT with an interest in acoustics.
Although he initially expected to major in either music or graphical design, he decided on architecture, in which he attained a BA in 1933.
After attaining his PhD in 1939 he worked at MIT for a year on the transmission of sound in various shapes of rooms.
Excluding a brief period at the University of Illinois and a stationing in London during WWII, he remained associated with the MIT until his retirement.
Bolt started a consulting firm with another MIT professor, Leo Beranek, in 1948, and worked on such projects as doing an audio analysis of the JFK assassination, the "18.5 minute gap" in Nixon's White House tapes, and improving the sound in concert halls.