Charles Thomson Rees Wilson

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Charles Thomson Rees Wilson

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (born February 14, 1869 in Parish Glencorse , Scotland, † November 15, 1959 in Carlops near Edinburgh ) was a Scottish physicist and Nobel Prize winner .

Life

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson was born on February 14, 1869 to the farmer John Wilson and his wife Annie Clerk Harper in Glencorse Parish in Midlothian County near Edinburgh . After his father's death in 1873, he moved to Manchester with his mother . After attending private school, he was educated at Owen's College, now the University of Manchester - in 1888 he moved to Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge , where he graduated in 1892. With the aim of becoming a doctor, he mainly attended courses in biology. In Cambridge he began to be more interested in physical and chemical issues - his decision to turn away from medicine could also have been influenced by Balfour Stewart , the physics professor at Owen's College.

After graduating, Wilson worked at the Cavendish Laboratory and became a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College in 1900, giving lectures and performing experiments. He took over the advanced lectures in practical physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in 1918. In 1913 he was appointed meteorological observer at the Observatory for Solar Physics on Ben Nevis . From 1918 he lectured in electrical meteorology and was appointed Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1925 .

Wilson married the pastor's daughter Jessie Fraser in 1908 and had four children, two sons and two daughters. He died on November 15, 1959 in Carlops with his family.

plant

After observing coronas and glories on Ben Nevis in the late summer of 1894, he began to try to reproduce these phenomena in the laboratory.

Commemorative plaque for the Ben Nevis Observatory and C. Wilson's cloud chamber

In his experiments with moist, dust-free air, he found that droplets were very often formed. After a few months, he assumed that it was a matter of condensation on continuously generated nuclei - possibly ions that are also responsible for the residual conductivity of the atmosphere . This assumption was confirmed in 1896 when he exposed a forerunner of the cloud chamber to the newly discovered X-rays , which led to a strong (almost rain-like ) increase in drop formation. In the following years Wilson devoted himself to extensive studies of ions as condensation nuclei, but from 1900 his research was severely limited due to his extensive teaching activities. It was not until 1911 that he was able to record the traces of individual alpha and beta particles (= electrons ) photographically for the first time with an advanced cloud chamber . In the following years he was able to develop this technology to perfection, which in 1923 resulted in his two legendary, excellently illustrated publications on the orbits of electrons. His technique was used in large parts of the world with great success, including by Blackett and Kapitsa in Cambridge, by Irène Curie and Auger in Paris and by Bothe and Meitner in Berlin .

For the development of Wilson's cloud chamber named after him for the detection of ionizing radiation, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 together with Arthur Compton , who was able to prove the Compton effect with the help of a cloud chamber without a doubt .

The Wilson cloud is also named after him , a cloud of water mist that is created as a result of the pressure changes in a strong explosion.

Awards

The lunar crater Wilson is named after him as well as the Scottish astronomer Alexander Wilson and the American astronomer Ralph Elmer Wilson .

literature

Web links

Commons : Charles Thomson Rees Wilson  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ encyclopedia team of the publisher FABrockhaus (ed.): Nobel Prizes . Chronicle of outstanding achievements. Mannheim 2001, ISBN 3-7653-0491-3 , pp. 268 .
  2. ^ Samuel Glasstone, Philip J. Dolan: The effects of nuclear weapons . Ed .: US Department of Defense, US Department of Energy. 3. Edition. Washington 1977, p. 43 (English, hathitrust.org [accessed August 7, 2020]).
  3. ^ Fellows Directory. Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. (PDF file) Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed April 23, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Glencorse
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1959
Place of death Carlops near Edinburgh