C. T. R. Wilson
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959) at the 1927 Solvay conference.
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959) at the 1927 Solvay conference.
Born 14 February 1869(1869-02-14)
Midlothian, Scotland
Died 15 November 1959 (aged 90)
Edinburgh, Scotland
Nationality United Kingdom
Fields Physics
Institutions University of Cambridge
Alma mater University of Manchester
University of Cambridge
Academic advisors J. J. Thomson
Doctoral students Cecil Frank Powell
Known for Cloud chamber
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics 1927

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson CH (February 14, 1869 – November 15, 1959) was a Scottish physicist and meteorologist who received the Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cloud chamber.

Contents

Biography

He was born in the parish of Glencorse, Midlothian to a farmer, John Wilson, and his mother Annie Clerk Harper. After his father died in 1873, his family moved to Manchester. He was educated at Owen's College, studying biology with the intent to become a physician. He then went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he became interested in physics and chemistry.

He thereafter became particularly interested in meteorology, and in 1893 he began to study clouds and their properties. He worked for some time at the observatory on Ben Nevis, where he made observations of cloud formation. He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale in the laboratory in Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container. He later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber caused by ions and radiation. For the invention of the cloud chamber he received the Nobel Prize in 1927.

He married Jessie Fraser in 1908, the daughter of a minister from Glasgow, and the couple had four children. He died near Edinburgh, surrounded by his family.

The Wilson crater on the Moon is co-named for him, Alexander Wilson and Ralph Elmer Wilson.

The Wilson Society, the natural sciences society of Sidney Sussex College, is also named for him.

Archives

The archives of Charles Thomson Rees Wilson are maintained by the Archives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS).

References

  • Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Isaac Asimov, 2nd ed., Doubleday & C., Inc., ISBN 0-385-17771-2.

External links

v • d • e
Nobel Laureates in Physics

Jean Perrin (1926) · Arthur Compton / Charles Wilson (1927) · Owen Richardson (1928) · Louis de Broglie (1929) · C. V. Raman (1930) · Werner Heisenberg (1932) · Erwin Schrödinger / Paul Dirac (1933) · James Chadwick (1935) · Victor Hess / Carl Anderson (1936) · Clinton Davisson / George Thomson (1937) · Enrico Fermi (1938) · Ernest Lawrence (1939) · Otto Stern (1943) · Isidor Rabi (1944) · Wolfgang Pauli (1945) · Percy Bridgman (1946) · Edward Appleton (1947) · Patrick Blackett (1948) · Hideki Yukawa (1949) · Cecil Powell (1950)
Persondata
NAME Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Physicist, Nobel Laureate
DATE OF BIRTH 1869-02-14
PLACE OF BIRTH Midlothian, Scotland
DATE OF DEATH 1959-11-15
PLACE OF DEATH Edinburgh, Scotland
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Thomson_Rees_Wilson"


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