Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (14 February 1869 – 15 November 1959) was a Scottish

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...

and

particle physicist Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the scale of protons and ...

who shared the 1927

Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...

with

Arthur Compton Arthur Holly Compton (September 10, 1892 – March 15, 1962) was an American particle physicist who won the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiati ...

for his invention of the

cloud chamber A cloud chamber, also known as a Wilson chamber, is a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation. A cloud chamber consists of a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapor of water or alcohol. An energetic ...

Education and early life

Wilson was born in the parish of

Glencorse Glencorse is a parish of Midlothian, Scotland, lying south of Edinburgh.Gazetteer of Scotland, publ, by W & AK Johnston, Edinburgh, 1937. Article on Glencorse. Places are presented alphabetically It is bounded on the north-west by the former pa ...

Midlothian Midlothian (; ) is registration county, lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh council ar ...

, to Annie Clark Harper and John Wilson, a sheep farmer. After his father died in 1873, he moved with his family to

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. With financial support from his step-brother, he studied biology at

Owens College Owens may refer to: Places in the United States * Owens Station, Delaware * Owens Township, St. Louis County, Minnesota * Owens, Missouri * Owens, Ohio * Owens, Texas * Owens, Virginia People * Owens (surname), including a list of people with ...

(now the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

) with the intent of becoming a doctor. In 1887, he graduated from the college with a BSc. He won a scholarship to attend

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (historically known as "Sussex College" and today referred to informally as "Sidney") is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1 ...

, where he became interested in physics and chemistry. In 1892 he received 1st class honours in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos.

Career

He became particularly interested in

meteorology Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agricultur ...

, and in 1893 he began to study clouds and their properties. Beginning in 1894, he worked for some time at the

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

Ben Nevis Ben Nevis ( ; , ) is the highest mountain in Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the British Isles. Ben Nevis stands at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Highland region of Lochaber, close to the town of Fort William. The mount ...

, where he made observations of cloud formation. He was particularly fascinated by the appearance of glories. He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

in Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container. In 1895, he discovered that at a large enough expansion ratio supersaturated water vapour condensates even without dust which he removed by previous condensations, contrary to the previous research by John Aitken. Under

J. J. Thomson Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was an English physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of ...

's mentorship by 1896, he found out that

X-rays An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

stimulate the condensation just as well as dust. He later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber by condensation onto

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

s generated by

radioactivity Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is conside ...

. Several of his cloud chambers survive. Wilson was made Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and University Lecturer and Demonstrator in 1900. He was known by some as a poor lecturer, due to a pronounced stutter, but he did teach a course on

atmospheric electricity Atmospheric electricity describes the electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrica ...

as a visiting lecturer at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. In 1918, he was appointed Reader in Electrical Meteorology, and in 1925,

Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy The Jacksonian Professorship of Natural Philosophy is one of the senior chairs in natural philosophy, Natural and Experimental philosophy at University of Cambridge, Cambridge University. It was founded in 1782 by a bequest from the Reverend Ri ...

. In 1906, he hypothesized that

cosmic radiation Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Sol ...

might generate the ions causing condensation without apparent reasons.

Contributions

The invention of the cloud chamber was by far Wilson's signature accomplishment, earning him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1927. The Cavendish laboratory praised him for the creation of "a novel and striking method of investigating the properties of ionized gases". The cloud chamber allowed huge experimental leaps forward in the study of subatomic particles and the field of particle physics, generally. Some have credited Wilson with making the study of particles possible at all. Observatory Ben Nevis memorial

Wilson published numerous papers on meteorology and physics, on topics including

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

ionization Ionization or ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive Electric charge, charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged at ...

, thundercloud formation, and other meteorological events. Wilson may also have observed a sprite in 1924, 65 years before their official discovery. Weather was a focus of his work throughout his career, from his early observations at Ben Nevis to his final paper, on thunderclouds.

Method

Retrospectively, Wilson's experimental method has received some attention from scholars. In a period of scientific inquiry characterized by a divide between "analytical" and "morphological" scientists, Wilson's method of inquiry represented a hybrid. While some scientists believed phenomena should be observed in pure nature, others proposed laboratory-controlled experiments as the premier method for inquiry. Wilson used a combination of methods in his experiments and investigations. Wilson's work "made things visible whose properties had only previously been deduced indirectly". He has been called "almost the last of the great individual experimenters in physics". He used his cloud chamber in various ways to demonstrate the operating principles of things like subatomic particles and X-rays. But his primary interest, and the subject of the bulk of his papers, was meteorology.

Awards, honours, and legacy

Wilson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1900. CTRwilsonCloudChamberCavendishLab2013-08-29-17-09-40

For the invention of the cloud chamber he received the

in 1927. He shared this prize with the American physicist

, rewarded for his work on the particle nature of radiation. Despite Wilson's great contribution to particle physics, he remained interested in atmospheric physics, specifically

, for his entire career. For example, his last research paper, published in 1956 when he was in his late eighties (at that time he was the oldest FRS to publish a paper in the Royal Society's journals), was on atmospheric electricity. List of other awards: * 1911:

Hughes Medal The Hughes Medal is a silver-gilt medal awarded by the Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. T ...

* 1922:

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society. Two are given for "the mo ...

* 1925: Howard N. Potts Medal * 1929:

Franklin Medal The Franklin Medal was a science award presented from 1915 until 1997 by the Franklin Institute located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country ...

* 1931:

Duddell Medal and Prize The Dennis Gabor Medal and Prize (previously the Duddell Medal and Prize until 2008) is a prize awarded biannually by the Institute of Physics for distinguished contributions to the application of physics in an industrial, commercial or business ...

* 1935:

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is the most prestigious award of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, conferred "for sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science". The award alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the bio ...

The Wilson crater on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

is named after him, Alexander Wilson and

Ralph Elmer Wilson Ralph Elmer Wilson (April 14, 1886 – March 25, 1960) was an American astronomer. Wilson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Herbert Couper Wilson and Mary B. Nichols. He earned his B.A. from Carleton College and entered the Universit ...

. The Wilson Condensation Cloud formations that occur after large explosions, such as nuclear detonations, are named after him. The Wilson Society, the scientific society of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge is named in his honour, as is th
CTR Wilson Institute for Atmospheric Electricity
the Atmospheric Electricity Special Interest Group of th
Royal Meteorological Society
The archives of C.T.R. Wilson are maintained by the

Archives of the University of Glasgow The Archives of the University of Glasgow (GUAS) maintain the historical records of the University of Glasgow back to its foundation in 1451. Its earliest record is a charter dating from 1304 for the lands of the earliest mention of record-ke ...

. in 1996, a blue plaque in Wilson's honour was installed in a specially built cairn at Flotterstone, close to his birthplace at Crosshouse Farm. In 2012, the Royal Society of Edinburgh held a meeting in honour of Wilson, the "Great Scottish Physicist".

Personal life

In 1908, Wilson married Jessie Fraser, the daughter of a minister from

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. The couple had four children. His family knew him as patient and curious, and fond of taking walks in the hills near his home. He died at his home in

Carlops Carlops () is a small village in the Pentland Hills, within the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, close to the boundary with Midlothian. It lies between West Linton and Penicuik. The village was founded in 1784 and developed cotton weaving, co ...

on 15 November 1959, surrounded by his family.

References

External links

* *
The Papers of C. T. R. Wilson
held at

Churchill Archives Centre The Churchill Archives Centre (CAC) at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge is one of the largest repositories in the United Kingdom for the preservation and study of modern personal papers. It is best known for housing the papers ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees 1869 births 1959 deaths 20th-century British physicists Alumni of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Manchester British Nobel laureates Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Nobel laureates in Physics People from Midlothian Recipients of the Copley Medal Scottish chemists Scottish Nobel laureates Scottish physicists Royal Medal winners British experimental physicists Aerosol scientists Jacksonian Professors of Natural Philosophy Howard N. Potts Medal recipients Scottish meteorologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Recipients of Franklin Medal Presidents of the Cambridge Philosophical Society