Thursday, May 27, 2021

Today (27 May 1897) is the Birthday of Nobel laureate Sir John Douglas Cockrooft, who created nuclear fission energy.

Today (27 May 1897) is the Birthday of Nobel laureate Sir John Douglas Cockrooft, who created nuclear fission energy. 

Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was born on 27 May 1897 in Yorkshire, England. He served in the British Army on the Western Front during World War I. Cockcroft studied electrical engineering at Manchester College of Technology. He later received a scholarship and studied at St. John's College, Cambridge. In 1924, Ernest Rutherford enrolled Kokroft as a research student in his County Laboratory. In 1928, under Rutherford's supervision, Cockcroft completed his doctoral dissertation. During this time, he worked as an assistant to the Russian physicist Peter Kapitsa. Cockcroft was studying the physics of magnetic fields at shallow temperatures. Cockcroft helped develop helium lubricants. 


Cockcroft discovered that protons were capable of penetrating the boron nucleus with a force of 300,000 electron volts. Cockcroft and Walton worked to build their accelerator for the next two years. For this, they were given a transformer. In 1932 the two used their accelerators to collide lithium and beryllium with high-energy protons. They expected gamma rays as a result. But not available. But what they observed was visualized by James Chadwick as nodules. Cockroach and Walton then thought of getting the alpha particles. On April 14, 1932, they discovered alpha particles. They first announced artificial nuclear fission in the journal Nature.

3Li + p → 24

2He + 17.2 MeV

nuclear-fission-o.gif

Cockroach – Walton co-developed the accelerator with Ernest Walton and Mark Olibond. Cockroach and Walton invented a method of artificial fission of the nucleus with this device. This is called nuclear fission. The discovery, known as atomic fission, won the IUSU Prize in 1938 and the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951. He co-won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ernest Walton for his research on nuclear fission. He is considered a pioneer in the development of atomic energy.

                                     


During World War II, he was appointed Assistant Director of the Cockroft Scientific Research Center and studied radar. Explored the technical possibilities of nuclear weapons. In 1940, he shared British technology with his American counterparts under the Desert program. As a result of this plan, equipment needed to attack V-1 flying bombs was brought from the United States to Britain in the latter part of the war. In May 1944, he was appointed director of the laboratory by Montreal. After the war, Kokroft was appointed director of the Atomic Energy Research Institute (AERE). The first nuclear reactor in Western Europe, the GLEEP, was commissioned on August 15, 1947. From 1959 to 1967, he was the first lecturer at Cambridge Churchill College and, from 1961 to 1965, the Chancellor of the Australian National University of Canberra.


Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, the inventor of nuclear fission, died of a heart attack on September 18, 1967, at his home in Churchill College, Cambridge, in his 70s. He was buried in the same tomb of his son Timothy in the parish of the Ascension Funeral Home in Cambridge. A memorial service was held on October 17, 1967, in Westminster Abbey.

Source By: Wikipedia

Information: Ramesh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.


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