William Lawrence Bragg

William Lawrence Bragg

Sir William Lawrence Bragg (born March 31, 1890 in Adelaide , Australia , † July 1, 1971 in Waldringford near Ipswich ) was a British physicist of Australian origin and Nobel Prize winner.

Life

William Lawrence Bragg was born in Adelaide on March 31, 1890, to Sir William Henry Bragg . The maternal grandfather, Sir Charles Todd, was an astronomer and postmaster general of South Australia .

After attending St. Peter's College there , he studied mathematics at the University of Adelaide . After graduating in 1908, he returned with his father to Britain and studied at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge , where he the Natural Sciences Tripos graduated in 1912 with honors. After working with his father for two years, he was made a Fellow and Lecturer at Trinity College in 1914 . From 1915 to 1919 he served as a technical advisor for sound measurement in the map department of the military headquarters in France. He was appointed Officer of the British Empire in 1918 and was awarded the Military Cross .

After the war he was Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester from 1919 to 1937 , and from 1937 to 1938 director of the National Physical Laboratory . From 1938 to 1953 he was Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge and was knighted in 1941 . In 1953 he accepted the post of Fuller Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution , which he held until his retirement in 1966. In this position he was instrumental in introducing lectures for schoolchildren, in which the children should be introduced to science through experiments. He was chairman of the Frequency Advisory Committee from 1958 to 1960. In 1967 he became a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor .

From 1921 he was married to Alice Grace Jenny Hopkinson, with whom he had two sons and two daughters. He died on July 1, 1971 in Waldringford Hospital near Ipswich .

plant

Bragg X-ray spectrograph, 1912. Science Museum London .

Inspired by a publication by Max von Laues , Lawrence Bragg worked with his father from 1912 to 1914 on the examination of crystals with X-rays . He found the Bragg equation in 1912, which was named after the two physicists, and used it together with his father, who developed the X-ray spectrograph, to study various crystals.

With his students he developed an extensive theory of the structure of silicates.

Awards

• In 1914 he was awarded the Barnard Medal together with his father William Henry Bragg .
• Bragg and his father William Henry Bragg were awarded the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics “for their services to the study of crystal structures using X-rays”. He also received the Matteucci Medal in the same year, also together with his father .
• In 1921 Bragg was elected as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society , which awarded him the Hughes Medal in 1931 , the Royal Medal in 1946 and the Copley Medal in 1966 .
• 1939 admission to the Académie des sciences as a corresponding member (since 1955 "associé étranger").
• In 1939 he received the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences , of which he became a member in 1945.
• In 1943 he became an elected member of the American Philosophical Society .
• In 1943 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .
• In 1948 he received the Roebling Medal from the Mineral Society of America .
• In 1951 he became a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.
• In 1955 he was awarded the X-ray badge of the city of Remscheid .
• In 1959 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

The Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics , which the Australian Institute of Physics awards to an outstanding doctoral student every year , is named after father and son .

The British Institute of Physics awards the Bragg Medal, named after Lawrence Bragg, and the Bragg Prize for contributions to teaching physics.

Fonts

• with WH Bragg: X-rays and crystal structure, London, G. Bell, 2nd edition 1918
• Editor with WH Bragg: The crystalline state, 4 volumes, London, G. Bell, 1933 to 1965
• The structure of Silicates, Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1932
• Electricity, Macmillan 1936
• History of x-ray analysis, Longmans, Green and Co., 1943
• Ideas and discoveries in physics, Harlow, Longmans 1970
• Atomic structure of minerals, Oxford University Press 1937

Web links

Commons : William Lawrence Bragg  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Literature by and about William Lawrence Bragg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about William Lawrence Bragg  in the German Digital Library
• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the awarding of the prize to Father & Son Bragg in 1915 (English)
• Entry to Bragg; Sir; William Lawrence (1890-1971) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London
• From Bragg's law to neutron diffraction (English)
• William Lawrence Bragg in nndb (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Sir Lawrence Bragg . In: Encyclopædia Britannica .
2. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter B. Académie des sciences, accessed on September 26, 2019 (French). 
3. ^ Member History: Lawrence Bragg. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 17, 2018 . 
4. ^ Biographical Index: Former RSE Fellows 1783–2002. Royal Society of Edinburgh, accessed October 12, 2019 . 
5. ↑ http://www.aip.org.au/info/?q=content/bragg-gold-medal-excellence-physics http://www.aip.org.au/info/?q=content%2Fbragg- gold-medal-excellence-physics ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ The Bragg medal and prize ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.