C.T.R. WilsonThe inventor of the cloud chamber, who made particle physics visualizable

Portrait, Nobel Biography, 1927.

Lecture by Jim Jamiesonof theScottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC)

Acknowledgement - Main sources of information

Date Author Source

1896- CTR Wilson 16 scientific papers, Proceedings of the Royal Society, A

1927 CTR Wilson Nobel Lectures, Physics, 1922-1941

1960 PMS Blackett Charles Thomson Rees Wilson 1869-1959, Biographical Memoires of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 6

1960 CTR Wilson Reminiscences of my early years, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 14, No. 2

1954 CTR Wilson Ben Nevis sixty years ago, Weather, 9, 309

1954 J Paton Ben Nevis Observatory 1883-1904, Weather, 9, 291

2004 M Roy The weathermen of Ben Nevis 1893-1904

1894 - Extracts from the log book of the Ben Nevis Observatory, 7th-22nd Sept. 1984, Edinburgh Meteorological Office

1997 P Galison Image and Logic – a Material Culture of Microphysics, University of Chicago Press

2011 G Harrison The cloud chamber and CTR Wilson’s legacy to atmospheric science, Royal Meteorological Society

2004 M Leone, N Robotti A note on the Wilson cloud chamber, Eur. J. Phys. 25 (2004), 781-791

Acknowledgements

Illustration source Slides

Nobel Lectures 1, 16

Gregor Steele 2, 3

University of Manchester 4

University of Cambridge 4, 30

The Royal Society 8, 25-29, 31, 32, 34-38, 43

Alex Gillespie 9

Edinburgh Meteorological Office 10, 11

Graeme Paterson 12

Image and Logic, Peter Galison 13, 14, 33, 39

Cambridge Philosophical Society 15

A study of splashes, A M Worthington 23, 24

Institut International de Physique Solvay 41

Scottish Mountaineering Club 42