James Chadwick
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031075
It’s the birthday of James Chadwick, who was born in 1891 in Bollington, England. Chadwick studied at Manchester University under Ernest Rutherford. When World War I broke out in 1914, Chadwick was in Berlin working with Hans Geiger. He spent the war in an internment camp for enemy aliens. After the war, Chadwick rejoined Rutherford, first at Manchester and then at Cambridge. By the early 1930s, it was clear that protons and electrons alone could not account for both the charge and spin of atomic nuclei. Chadwick and Rutherford hypothesized the existence of a new neutral particle, the neutron. In 1932 Chadwick devised and performed an experiment that proved the particle existed. He was awarded the Nobel physics prize three years later for his discovery.
Date in History: 20 October 1891
