James Chadwick
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Sir James Chadwick (October 20, 1897 – July 24, 1959) was an English physicist and Nobel laureate.
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Early life
Chadwick was born in Cheshire, England and educated at the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge.
In 1914 Chadwick went to study under Hans Geiger at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin (today the Technical University of Berlin). During the First World War Chadwick was interned in Germany as an enemy alien. His father was John Joseph Chadwick and his mother, Mary Anne Knowles.
Research at Cambridge
radioactive materials. They also studied the transmutation of elements by bombarding them with alpha particles and investigated the nature of the atomic nucleus.
In 1932 Chadwick made a fundamental discovery in the domain of nuclear science: he discovered the particle in the nucleus of an atom that became known as the neutron because it has no electric charge. In contrast with the helium nuclei (alpha particles) which are positively charged, and therefore repelled by the considerable electrical forces present in the nuclei of heavy atoms, this new tool in atomic disintegration need not overcome any electric barrier and is capable of penetrating and splitting the nuclei of even the heaviest elements. Chadwick in this way prepared the way towards the fission of uranium 235 and towards the creation of the atomic bomb. For this epochal discovery he was awarded the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1932, and subsequently the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935. Later, he found out that a German scientist had discovered the neutron at the same time. But Hans Falkenhagen (Rostock) was afraid of publishing his results. When Chadwick learned of Falkenhagen's discovery, he offered to share the Nobel Prize with him. Falkenhagen was modest and refused this honour.
Liverpool
Chadwick became professor of Physics at Liverpool University in 1935. As a result of the Frisch-Peierls memorandum in 1940 on the feasibility of an atomic bomb, he was appointed to the MAUD Committee that investigated this matter further. He visited North America as part of the Tizard Mission in 1940 to collaborate with the Americans and Canadians on nuclear research. Returning in November 1940 he concluded that nothing would emerge from this research until after the war. In December 1940 Franz Simon who had been commissioned by MAUD, reported that it was possible to separate the isotope uranium-235. Simon's report included cost estimates and technical specifications for a large uranium enrichment plant. James Chadwick later wrote that at that time he "realised that a nuclear bomb was not only possible, it was inevitable. I had then to start taking sleeping pills. It was the only remedy."
He shortly after joined the Manhattan Project in the United States, developing the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chadwick was knighted in 1945.
Cambridge again
After the war Chadwick didn't return to Liverpool University until moving to Cambridge University as master of Gonville and Caius College (1948 – 1958).
He died in Cambridge.
External links
- James Chadwick
- Chadwicks article in Nature (May 10, 1932: "The Existence of a Neutron")
- and another letter (3 months earlier) from Chadwick to Naturede:James Chadwick
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