Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the
University of Cambridge 's Department ofPhysics , and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teachinglaboratory and was initially located on theNew Museums Site ,Free School Lane , in the centre of Cambridge. After perennial space problems, it moved to its present site inWest Cambridge in the early 1970s. Physical Chemistry (originally the department of Colloid Science under Eric Rideal) left the Cavendish site earlier, subsequently locating with chemistry in Lensfield Road.The current head of the Cavendish is
Peter Littlewood . The Cavendish Professorship of Physics is currently held by Sir Richard Friend.The Department is named after
Henry Cavendish , a famousphysicist , and a member of theDukes of Devonshire branch of theCavendish family. Another family member,William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire , was Chancellor of the University, and he gave money to endow the laboratory in memory of his learned relative.As of 2006 , 29 Cavendish researchers have wonNobel Prize s. [ [http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/resources/nobel/about.php] — Nobel Prize Winners who have worked for considerable periods of time at the Cavendish Laboratory]Nuclear physics
In World War II the laboratory carried out research for the
MAUD Committee , part of the BritishTube Alloys project of research into theAtomic Bomb . Researchers includedNicholas Kemmer ,Allan Nunn May ,Anthony French , and the French scientists includingLew Kowarski andHans von Halban . Several transferred to Canada in 1943; theMontreal Laboratory and some later to theChalk River Laboratories .The production of
plutonium andneptunium by bombardinguranium-238 with neutrons was predicted in 1940 by two teams working independently:Egon Bretscher andNorman Feather at the Cavendish andEdwin M. McMillan andPhilip Abelson atBerkeley Radiation Laboratory at theUniversity of California, Berkeley .Biology
The Cavendish Laboratory has had an important influence on
biology , mainly through the application ofX-ray crystallography to the study of structures of biological molecules.Francis Crick already worked in the Medical Research Council Unit, headed byMax Perutz and housed in the Cavendish Laboratory, when James Watson came from theUnited States and they made a breakthrough in discovering the structure ofDNA . For their work while in the Cavendish Laboratory, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, together withMaurice Wilkins of King's College London, himself a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge.Groups
Areas in which the Laboratory has been very influential since 1950 include:-
*
Shoenberg Laboratory for Quantum Matter [http://www-qm.phy.cam.ac.uk/] (underGil Lonzarich );
* SuperconductivityJosephson junction (under ABrian Pippard );
*Theory of Condensed Matter , which is the dominant theoretical group.
*Electron Microscopy (under Archie Howie);
*Radio Astronomy (underMartin Ryle andAntony Hewish ), with the Radio Astronomy Group's telescopes being based atMullard Radio Astronomy Observatory
* [http://www.sp.phy.cam.ac.uk/ Semiconductor Physics]Nobel Prize winning Cavendish researchers
*
Lord Rayleigh (Physics, 1904)
* Sir J.J. Thomson (Physics, 1906)
* Lord Rutherford (Ernest Rutherford ) (Chemistry, 1908)
* Sir Lawrence Bragg (Physics, 1915)
*Charles Barkla (Physics, 1917)
*Francis Aston (Chemistry, 1922)
*Charles Wilson (Physics, 1927)
*Arthur Compton (Physics, 1927)
* Sir Owen Richardson (Physics, 1928)
*Sir James Chadwick (Physics, 1935)
* Sir George Thomson (Physics, 1937)
* Sir Edward Appleton (Physics, 1947)
* Lord Blackett (Patrick Blackett ) (Physics, 1948)
* Sir John Cockcroft (Physics, 1951)
*Ernest Walton (Physics, 1951)
*Francis Crick (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)
*James Watson (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)
*Max Perutz (Chemistry, 1962)
* Sir John Kendrew (Chemistry, 1962)
*Dorothy Hodgkin (Chemistry, 1964)
*Brian Josephson (Physics, 1973)
*Sir Martin Ryle (Physics, 1974)
*Antony Hewish (Physics, 1974)
*Sir Nevill Mott (Physics, 1977)
*Philip Anderson (Physics, 1977)
* Pjotr Kapitsa (Physics, 1978)
* Allan Cormack (Physiology or Medicine, 1979)
*Sir Aaron Klug (Chemistry, 1982)
*Norman Ramsey (Physics, 1989)References
External links
* [http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/ Cavendish Laboratory website]
* [http://www.cam.ac.uk/map/v3/drawmap.cgi?mp=main;xx=692;yy=590;mt=c;sx=4;tl=Department%20of%20Physics%3B%20Cavendish%20Laboratory;gf=png Location of the Cavendish Laboratory] on the University map and [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&ll=52.209231,0.092488&spn=0.001538,0.004962 on Google maps]
* [http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/cavendish/history/ Cavendish history]
* [http://www.bluesci.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=262&Itemid=260 History of the laboratory]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/historyofcavendi00londuoft A history of the Cavendish laboratory, 1871-1910]
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Cavendish Laboratory — Laboratoire Cavendish Pour les articles homonymes, voir Cavendish. Le laboratoire Cavendish (Cavendish Laboratory) est le département de physique de l université de Cambridge. Il fait partie de l école de sciences physiques. Il a ouvert en 1874 … Wikipédia en Français
Cavendish Laboratory — Eingang des historischen Cavendish Gebäudes in der Innenstadt, Free School Lane Das Cavendish Laboratorium (engl. Cavendish Laboratory) wurde 1873 gegründet. Es ist das Institut für Physik an der englischen Elite Universität Cambridge. Es ist… … Deutsch Wikipedia
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(the) Cavendish Laboratory — the Cavendish Laboratory [the Cavendish Laboratory] a centre for scientific experiments in ↑Cambridge, England. Since it was set up in 1871 many famous discoveries have been made there, including parts of the atom and the structure of ↑DNA (= the … Useful english dictionary
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