Aston, Francis William

Aston, Francis William (1877-1945) British chemist and physicist, who until 1910 worked at Mason College (later Birmingham University) and then with J. J. Thomson at Cambridge University. In 1919 Aston designed the mass spectrograph [see mass spectrometry), for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1922. With it he discovered the isotopes of neon, and was thus able to explain nonintegral atomic weights. 

Aston, Francis William (1877-1945) British chemist and physicist. Aston s main contribution to science was the development of the mass spectrograph. This en-... 

Aston, Francis William (1877-1945) English atomic physicist who worked with J.J. Thomson at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. His principal field of study was in elements of equal atomic number but different atomic weight (isotopes). 

Francis William Aston (1877-1945). English chemist and physicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1922 for developing the mass spectrometer. 

In 1907, J. J. Thomson observed that when a vacuum tube is filled with neon gas under low pressure, the introduction of magnetic and electric fields produces two parabolic luminescent paths of canal rays (see chapter 1), corresponding to two different masses (20 and 22) for charged particles. The potentially revolutionary results were treated cautiously since impurities could be the cause. In 1909, Francis William Aston (1877-1945) became Thomson s assistant at Cambridge. Aston and Thomson attempted to apply Graham s law of diffusion to separate the two different components of neon gas and, after thousands of cycles of diffusion operations, obtained in 1913 a mass difference of 0.7 between the hghter and heavier fractions. World War I delayed continuation of this groundbreaking project for a few years. 

Francis William Aston (1877-1945), United Kingdom. For his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule. ... 

Francis William Aston, born 1877 in Harboume, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, died 1945 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. 

In 1912, J. J. Thomson (the discoverer of the electron) had subjected beams of positively charged neon ions to the action of a magnetic field. The field deflected the neon ions and caused them to fall on a photographic plate. If all the ions had been identical in mass they would all have been deflected by the same amount, and a single discolored spot on the photographic film would have appeared. However, two spots were located, one some ten times as dark as the other. A co-worker, Francis William Aston (1877-1945), later improved the device and confirmed the results. Similar results were uncovered for other elements. Since this device separated chemically similar ions into a kind of spectrum of dark spots, it was called the mass spectrograph. 

Francis William Aston biographical details from de Hevesy (1947). 

Phil. Mag., 1919, xxxviii, 707, and many later papers Isotopes, 1922, and later eds. to 1941. Francis William Aston (Harborne, Birmingham, i September 1877-Cambridge, 20 November T945) studied chemistry under Tilden and P. F. Frankland in Birmingham, publishing some research with the latter. He then turned to physics and in 1909 became J. J. Thomson s assistant in Cambridge. He was Nobel laureate in 1922 Hevesy, J. Chem. Soc., 1948, 1468 id.. Obit. Not. F.R.S., 1945-8, v, 635. 

Aspirin see Acetylsalicylic acid Astbury, William T, 210 Aston, Francis W., 131, 208,... 

Francis William Aston 1934 Harold Clayton Urey... 

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