William Lawrence Bragg

Sir William Lawrence Bragg ( born March 31, 1890 in Adelaide / Australia, † July 1, 1971 in Forest Ringford to Ipswich ) was an Australian or British physicist and Nobel laureate.

Life

William Lawrence Bragg was born on 31 March 1890 as a son of Sir William Henry Bragg in Adelaide. The maternal grandfather, Sir Charles Todd, was an astronomer and Postmaster General of South Australia.

After visiting the local St. Peter 's College, he studied at the University of Adelaide mathematics. After graduating in 1908 he went with his father back to the UK and studied at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, where he graduated in 1912 the Natural Sciences Tripos with distinction. After he had worked two years with his father, he was in 1914 appointed Fellow and Lecturer at Trinity College. From 1915 to 1919 he served as Technical Advisor for sound measurement in the map department of the military headquarters in France. He was in 1918 appointed an Officer of the British Empire and was awarded the Military Cross.

After the war he was 1919-1937 Langworthy Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester, 1937-1938 Director of the National Physical Laboratory. From 1938 to 1953 he was the Cavendish professor of experimental physics at Cambridge and was knighted in 1941. He took in 1953 to the post of Fuller professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. In this position he was instrumental in the introduction of lectures for school children in which the children should be brought up with experiments in science. He was from 1958 to 1960 Chairman of the Frequency Advisory Committee. In 1967 he became a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour.

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

Work

Inspired by a publication Max von Laue worked Lawrence Bragg 1912-1914 together with his father in the investigation of crystals with X-rays. He found the Bragg equation in 1912, was named after the two physicists, and used it together with his father, who developed the Röntgenspektrografen, to study different crystals.

With his students, he developed a comprehensive theory of the structure of silicates.

Awards

In 1914 he was awarded, together with his father, William Henry Bragg, the Barnard Medal.

Bragg and his father William Henry Bragg in 1915 jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their contributions to the study of crystal structures using X-rays ." With an age of 25 years, he is still the youngest laureate who has ever received a Nobel Prize. He also received in the same year, also together with his father, the Matteucci Medal.

1921 Bragg was elected as a member ( "Fellow" ) to the Royal Society, the 1931 Hughes Medal, 1946, the Royal Medal in 1966 and the Copley Medal awarded him.

In 1948 he was awarded the Roebling Medal of the Mineral Society of America.

In 1951, he became a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome.

1955, the X-ray plate of Remscheid, he was awarded.

Writings

  • With WH Bragg: X -rays and crystal structure, London, G. Bell, 2nd edition 1918
  • Publisher with WH Bragg: The crystalline state, 4 volumes, London, G. Bell, 1933-1965
  • The structure of silicate, 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
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