Biography | Milestones | DVD/Books | Birthplace | Other Places | Awards | Honouring Ern | Bibliography | Miscellaneous | Site Map

Books

Purchasing Details
Comments
Errors Noted
Contents
Reviews


Cambridge Physics in the Thirties
John Hendry (Ed)

Adam Hilger 1984
ISBN None
209 pages. Hard Cover.
12 black/white photos and 22 diagrams embedded in the text.

Purchasing Details.
Out of Print

My Comments on This Book.

This collection of essays marked the 50th anniversary of the first use of a particle accelerator to split atoms, the discovery of the neutron and the demonstration of the existence of the positron. John Hendry's aim was to collect together reminiscences of the unprecedented sequence of breakthroughs in Rutherford's Cavendish lab in the early half of the 1930s. As Rutherford said of the time, "It never rains but it pours!"

Several essays were from the discoverers themselves. Some essays had been published before but were not well-known or otherwise not readily available.

This is a most valuable compilation.

Errors Noted.
None known.

back to top

Contents


Preface

vii


General Introduction

1

Essayist Part 1 - Three Famous Experiments of 1932

 Introduction

7

Norman Feather The Experimental Discovery of the Neutron

31

James Chadwick Some Personal Notes on the Discovery of the Neutron

42

Philip Dee
Some Reminsicences of the Discovery of the Neutron

46

Ernest Walton Personal Recollections of the Discovery of Fast Particles

49

Patrick Blackett
Cloud Chamber Researches in Nuclear Physics and Cosmic Radiation

56

Paul Dirac
Blackett and the Positron

61


Part 2 - Cambridge Physics and the Cavendish

Introduction

65

John Cockcroft
Some Recollections of Low Energy Nuclear Physics

74

Norman de Bruyne
A Personal View of the Cavendish 1923-30

81

W E Duncanson
Reminiscences 1930-34

90

Harrie Massey
Research at the Cavendish 1932

95


Part 3 - Underlying Themes


Introduction

103

Nevill Mott
Theory and Experiment at the Cavendish circa 1932

125

W B Lewis The Development of Electrical Counting Methods in the Cavendish

133

Lord Bowden The Basic Improbability of Nuclear Physics

137

C E Wynn-Williams The Scale-of-two Counter

141

T E Allibone Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company and the Cavendish

150

Alan Wilson Theoretical Physics in Cambridge in the Late 1920s and Early 1930s

174


Part 4 - Change and Continuity


Introduction

179

Mark Oliphant Working with Rutherford

184

Maurice Goldhaber Working with Chadwick

189

Rudolf Peierls Reminiscences of Cambridge in the Thirties 195

Select Bibliography

201


Name Index

206

back to top

Reviews

Not known at this stage.

Biography | Milestones | DVD/Books | Birthplace | Other Places | Awards | Honouring Ern | Bibliography | Miscellaneous | Site Map

Website maintained by John Campbell, author of Rutherford Scientist Supreme.
©2001 John Campbell