Cavendish Laboratory, at Cambridge University

After thinking about the phenomena of electrolysis (which we shall discuss in Chap. 10), an English scientist. Dr. G. Johnstone Stoney, stated, as early as 1874, that these phenomena indicate that electricity exists in discrete units, and that the units are associated with material atoms. In 1891 he emphasized this point and suggested the name electron for the postulated unit of electricity. At that time experiments were being carried on by physicists on the conduction of electricity through gases (as in a neon lamp) these experiments after some years (in 1897) led Sir J. J. Thomson (1856-1940), then Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, to the firm conclusion that the electron exists and to the determination of some of its properties. 

After his release from Ruhleben in 1919, Chadwick followed Rutherford to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, where he was named assistant director of research in 1923. Rutherford had been working on the disintegration of nitrogen nuclei under bombardment by a-parri-cles, and Chadwick s first research upon his return to England involved the disintegration of different nuclei. 

On February 27, 1932, in a letter to the British journal Nature, physicist James Chadwick of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, Ernest Rutherford s laboratory, announced the possible existence of a neutron. (He confirmed the neutron s existence in a longer paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society four months later, but Szilard would no more have doubted it at the time of Chadwick s first cautious announcement than did Chadwick himself like many scientific discoveries, it was obvious once it was demonstrated, and Szilard could repeat the demonstration in Berlin if he chose.) The neutron, a particle with nearly the same mass as the positively charged proton that until 1932 was the sole certain component of the atomic nucleus, had no electric charge, which meant it... 

JJ.Thomson s scientific ability was recognized early with his appointment as professor of physics in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University when he was not quite 28 years old. Soon after this appointment,Thomson began research on the discharge of electricity through gases.This work culminated in 1897 with the discovery of the electron. Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1906. 

In the science laboratory of the University of Chicago worked Robert Andrews Millikan, a man about C.T.R. s age. He had carefully read accounts of the work already done in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. Then he set to work to construct a new piece of apparatus. It consisted of two brass plates about one-third of an inch apart. In the center of the upper plate he bored a hole the diameter of a needle, and illuminated the space between the plates by a powerful beam of light. He connected the brass plates to a battery which supplied ten thousand volts. 

When James Watson (left) and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA in 1953 using Rosalind Franklin s data, they were research students at the Henry Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. 

In the 1880 s, Lord Rayleigh was professor of physics at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in England. He spent quite a number of years studying the density of gases, and he was particularly interested in nitrogen. 

Now, more than 135 years after the time of Kekule, we are apt to misunderstand what scientists in his time did and did not know. For example, it is a given to us that covalent bonds consist of one or more pairs of shared electrons. We must remember, however, that it was not until 1897 that J. J. Thomson, professor of physics at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University, discovered the electron. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics. The fact that the electron played any role in chemical bonding did not become clear for another 30 years. Thus, at the time Kekule made his proposal for the structure of benzene, the existence of electrons and their role in chemical bonding was completely unknown. 

Michael Brown s career follows a similar pattern of long service, at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He was appointed a Junior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry in 1962 and is at present Professor of Physical Chemistry. He obtained his PhD in 1966 for research done under the supervision of Professor E G. Prout. The coEaboration between Galwey and Brown began in 1971, when Dr Brown spent a sabbatical year at the Queen s University of Belfast, and continues still. Dr Brown has also spent periods of study leave in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and the Group Technical Centre of ICI Explosives in Ardeer, Scotland. His research interests include the reactions of pyrotechnic compositions. 

CDT s technology may also be used in reverse to act as a photovoltaic cell and CDT has filed several patents in this area. Early products include digital clocks powered by CDT s polymer solar cells. The company is developing the technology, based on work at Cambridge University s Cavendish Laboratory. 

See Nier, "Emergence of Physics," 279. William Thomson set up the first physics laboratory of its kind in Britain at the University of Glasgow. Alexander Wood, The Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1946) 1. 

In addition, there are a few more impact machines which are more relevant for the study of mechanism of initiation of ignition or explosion of HEMs on impact rather than their impact sensitivity. A lot of research in this direction has been carried out at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, UK by Bowden, Yoffe, Field and their coworkers [53-59]. 

Sir Samuel F. Edwards (Cavendish Laboratory. University of Cambridge noted (1987). "Liquids are everywhere in our lives, in scientific studies and in our everyday existence. The study of their properties, in terms of the molecules of which they arc made, has been the graveyard or many theories put forward by physicists and chemises, Hie modern student of liquids places his laith in Hie computer, and simulates molecular motion with notable success, but this still leaves a void where simple equations should exist, as are available for gases and solids. There is a powerful reason for the failure ol analytical studies of liquids, i.e.. the difficulty experienced in rinding simple equations for simple liquids. We can explain the origin of the trouble and show lhai it docs not apply lo wlul at first might seem a much more Complex system, that of polymer liquids where, instead of molecules like HjO or C(,H(,. one has systems of molecules like H lCHi)iu no or H (CHC H(,i .ni i which behave like sticky jellies and yet have complex properties that can he predicted successfully. ... 

The coexistence of liquid and vapour phases and critical phenomena may be treated from the point of view of thermodynamic surfaces. The p, T surface was described by James Thomson ( 2.VII C) but the full theory of surfaces with other coordinates was first given by Gibbs. Maxwell took a great interest in Gibbs s paper, gave an abstract of it, and constructed a model surface, Boynton,7 who used reduced coordinates (7r=/7/pc, etc.) and van der Waals s equation, says Maxwell made two models one is in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, and the other was sent to Gibbs at Yale University,... 

In 1907 he returned to England to become the Langworthy professor of physics at the University of Manchester, and in 1919 became the Cavendish professor of physics at Cambridge and chairman of the advisory council, H. M. Government, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research professor of natural philosophy, Royal Institution, London and director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory, Cambridge. 

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