Today (March 12, 1942) is the anniversary of Sir William Henry Bragg, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, for discovering the structure of crystals and the X-ray spectrum.
Sir William Henry Bragg was born
July 2, 1862, in Victon, Cumberland, England. He was a Scholarship winner at
Trinity College, Cambridge, and was educated at Grand School. In 1884 he
graduated as a third person. In 1885 he was awarded the First Class Honorary
Award in Mathematical Research. He shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics with
his son William Lawrence Bragg to discover the structure of crystals
and the development of the X-ray spectrometer. Until 1904, Bragg was head of
the physics division of the Australian Society for the Advancement of Science.
His continued work on alpha,
beta, and gamma rays led him to send the famous British physicist Ernest
Rutherford to the Royal Society. He was elected in 1907 and, within a year, worked as a professor in Leeds, England, where he considered gamma rays and
X-rays to have particle-like properties. In 1912, the German physicist Max von
Lau announced that crystals could split X-rays. Thus X-rays should be
light-like waves but with very short wavelengths.
Bragg and his eldest son,
Lawrence, studied physics at Cambridge and then researched X-rays to
learn crystal structure. These researches were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1915. After World War I, he worked on anti-submarine equipment. Bragg
founded the School of Crystal Science Research at University College London. After the death of Sir James Dewey, a chemist and physicist, he was appointed
Royal Director of the Institute and the Davy Faraday Research Laboratories,
London. He attracted many young scientists to these institutions.
Bragg is a renowned science
lecturer and writer. He has been President of the Royal Society since 1935.
Nobel Prize in Physics (1915), Bernard Medal (1915), Matzi Medal (1915),
Rumford Medal (1916), Copley Medal (1930), Faraday Medal (1936), John J. He has
received awards such as the Cardi Award (1939). Nobel laureate Sir William
Henry Bragg passed away on March 12, 1942, in London, England, at the age of 79.
Source By: Wikipedia
Information: Ramesh, Assistant
Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.
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