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Article

Liverpool and Berkeley: The Chadwick–Lawrence Letters

MAY 01, 1996
Having met at a Solvay conference in 1933, the discoverer of the neutron and the inventor of the cyclotron carried on a lively correspondence in the late 1930s. The next time they met was in 1943, on the Manhattan Project.
Andrew P. Brown

Research procedures at Cambridge University’s famous Cavendish Laboratory underwent some visible changes in the 1920s. An influx of men with electrical engineering backgrounds, such as John Cockcroft, T. E. Allibone and Ernest Walton, led to work on prototype particle accelerators. The goal was to attack the atomic nucleus with something other than Lord Rutherford’s beloved alpha particles.

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References

  1. 1. J. Chadwick, Oral history interview by Charles Weiner, 1969, Niels Bohr Library, AIP, College Park, Md.

  2. 2. E. O. Lawrence, J. Chadwick, Letters (1935–1947), Bancroft Library, U. of Calif., Berkeley. (A collection of 26 letters, previously unpublished).

  3. 3. Royal Society Grants for 1936, Royal Society, London.

  4. 4. J. Chadwick to Lord Rutherford, letter, 4 May 1936 (C41), Rutherford’s papers, Cambridge U. Library, Cambridge.

  5. 5. J. Chadwick, undated notes (probably 1971), Chadwick’s papers (CHAD II 2/1), Churchill Archives, Churchill College, Cambridge.
    (These are extensive notes that Chadwick sent to Sir Mark Oliphant, who was writing his monograph Rutherford Recollections of the Cambridge Days, published by Elsevier in 1972).

  6. 6. Lord Rutherford to J. Chadwick, letter, 12 October 1937. Chadwick’s papers (CHAD II 1/17), Churchill Archives, Churchill College, Cambridge.
    (This letter, previously unpublished, was among Chadwick’s papers. It is not in the main collection of Rutherford letters in Cambridge University Library).

  7. 7. J. Holt, unpublished lecture on the history of physics at Liverpool. See also,
    J. Holt, in Notes Rec. R. Soc. Lond. 48, 299 (1994).

  8. 8. The 37” Cyclotron—End of an era, U. of Liverpool Recorder 29, April 1962.

More about the authors

Andrew P. Brown, Elliott Regional Cancer Center, Manchester, New Hampshire.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 49, Number 5

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