George Paget Thomson
| Sir George Paget Thomson | |
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| Born | 3 May 1892 Cambridge, England |
| Died | 10 September 1975 (aged 83) Cambridge, England |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | University of Aberdeen University of Cambridge Imperial College London |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Doctoral advisor | John Strutt (Rayleigh) |
| Doctoral students | Ishrat Hussain Usmani |
| Known for | Electron diffraction |
| Notable awards | Howard N. Potts Medal (1932) Nobel Prize in Physics (1937) |
Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS (3 May 1892 – 10 September 1975) was an English physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognised for his discovery with Clinton Davisson of the wave properties of the electron by electron diffraction.
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Biography
Thomson was born in Cambridge, England, the son of physicist and Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson and Rose Elisabeth Paget, the daughter of the professor of medicine at the University of Cambridge. Thomson went to The Perse School, Cambridge before going onto read mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Cambridge, until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he was commissioned into the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. After brief service in France, he worked on aerodynamics at Farnborough and elsewhere. He resigned his commission as a Captain in 1920.
In 1924, Thomson married Kathleen Buchanan Smith, daughter of the Very Rev. Sir George Adam Smith. They had four children, two sons and two daughters. Kathleen died in 1941.
Career
After briefly serving in the First World War Thomson became a Fellow at Cambridge and then moved to the University of Aberdeen. George Thomson was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937 for his work in Aberdeen in discovering the wave-like properties of the electron. The prize was shared with Clinton Joseph Davisson who had made the same discovery independently. Whereas his father had seen the electron as a particle (and won his Nobel Prize in the process), Thomson demonstrated that it could be diffracted like a wave, a discovery proving the principle of wave-particle duality which had first been posited by Louis-Victor de Broglie in the 1920s as what is often dubbed the de Broglie hypothesis.
In 1930 he was appointed Professor at Imperial College. In the late 1930s and during the Second World War Thomson specialised in nuclear physics, concentrating on practical military applications. In particular Thomson was the chairman of the crucial MAUD Committee in 1940-1941 that concluded that an atomic bomb was feasible. In later life he continued this work on nuclear energy but also wrote works on aerodynamics and the value of science in society.
Thomson stayed at Imperial College until 1952, when he became Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1964, the college honoured his tenure with the George Thomson Building, an outstanding work of modernist architecture on the college's Leckhampton campus.
Thomson was knighted in 1943.
References
- "George Paget Thomson". Le Prix Nobel. the Nobel Foundation. 1937. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1937/thomson-bio.html. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
- "Thomson, Sir George Paget". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. 2007. http://www.britannica.com/nobelprize/print?articleId=72203&fullArticle=true&tocId=9072203. Retrieved 2007-09-12.
External links
- George Thomson portraits at the National Portrait Gallery
- George Thomson biography at Wageningen University
| Academic offices | ||
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| Preceded by Sir William Spens |
Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 1952-1962 |
Succeeded by Sir Frank Godbould Lee |
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Book:Nobel Prize in Physics
Category:Nobel laureates in Physics
Portal:Physics