George Paget Thomson
Sir George Thomson FRS | |
|---|---|
 Thomson in 1937 | |
| 43rd Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge | |
| In office 1952–1962 | |
| Preceded by | Will Spens |
| Succeeded by | Frank Godbould Lee |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 3 May 1892 Cambridge, England, UKGBI |
| Died | 10 September 1975 (aged 83) Cambridge, England, UK |
| Education | The Perse School |
| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Discovering electron diffraction (1927) |
| Spouse |
Kathleen Smith
(m. 1924; died 1941) |
| Children | 4, including John |
| Father | J. J. Thomson |
| Relatives |
|
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physical optics |
| Institutions |
|
| Academic advisors | J. J. Thomson |
| Notable students | Gertrude Goldhaber[1] |
Sir George Paget Thomson (3 May 1892 – 10 September 1975) was a British physicist who shared the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics with Clinton Davisson “for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals”.[2][3]
Education and military service
George Paget Thomson was born on 3 May 1892 in Cambridge, England, the son of physicist and Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson and Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of George Edward Paget. Thomson went to The Perse School in Cambridge before going on to read mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Cambridge, until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he was commissioned into the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. After brief service in France, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 to undertake research on aerodynamics at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough and elsewhere. He resigned his commission as a captain in 1920.
Career and research
After the war, Thomson became a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1921, he was appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 for his work at Aberdeen in discovering the wave-like properties of the electron. The prize was shared with the American physicist Clinton Davisson, who had made the same discovery independently. Whereas Thomson’s father, J. J. Thomson (who won the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics), had seen the electron as a particle, the son demonstrated that the electron could be diffracted like a wave.[4] By scattering electrons through thin metallic films (3 × 10−8 m thick) with known crystal structures, such as aluminium, gold and platinum, he found the dimensions of the observed diffraction patterns. In each case, his observed diffractions were within 5 percent of the predicted values given by Louis de Broglie's wave theory. This discovery provided further evidence for the principle of wave–particle duality, which had first been posited by de Broglie in the 1920s as what is often dubbed the de Broglie hypothesis.
From 1929 to 1930, Thomson was a non-resident lecturer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.[2] In 1930, he was appointed professor at Imperial College London in the chair of the late Hugh Longbourne Callendar. In the late 1930s and during the Second World War, he specialised in nuclear physics, concentrating on practical military applications. In particular, he was the chairman of the crucial MAUD Committee in 1940–1941 that concluded that an atomic bomb was feasible. In later life he continued this work on nuclear energy but also wrote works on aerodynamics and the value of science in society.
Thomson stayed at Imperial College until 1952, when he became Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1964, the college honoured his tenure with the George Thomson Building, a work of modernist architecture on the college's Leckhampton campus.
Family
In 1924, Thomson married Kathleen Buchanan Smith, the daughter of George Adam Smith, who served as Principal of the University of Aberdeen (1909–1935). They had two sons and two daughters. Kathleen died in 1941.[5]
Thomson died on 10 September 1975 in Cambridge at the age of 83. He is buried with his wife in Grantchester parish churchyard to the south of Cambridge.
One of their sons, John Thomson (1927–2018), became a senior diplomat who served as High Commissioner to India (1977–1982) and as Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1982–1987). Their grandson, Adam Thomson (born 1955), also became a senior diplomat, serving as High Commissioner to Pakistan (2010–2013) and as Permanent Representative to NATO (2014–2016). Another son, David Paget Thomson (1931–2022), was a merchant banker. [6] One daughter, Lillian Clare Thomson (born 1929), married the South African economist and mountaineer Johannes de Villiers Graaff.[7]
Awards and honours
In addition to winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, Thomson was knighted in 1943. He gave the address "Two aspects of science" as president of the British Association for 1959–1960.[8]
See also
References
- ^ "George Paget Thomson - Physics Tree". academictree.org. Retrieved 7 August 2025.
- ^ a b "George Paget Thomson". Le Prix Nobel. the Nobel Foundation. 1937. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ "Thomson, Sir George Paget". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ Thomson, G. P. (1927). "Diffraction of Cathode Rays by a Thin Film". Nature. 119 (3007): 890. Bibcode:1927Natur.119Q.890T. doi:10.1038/119890a0. S2CID 4122313.
- ^ Moon, P. B. "Thomson, Sir George Paget". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/31758. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ "David Paget Thomson" (PDF). Worshipful Company of Plumbers. Retrieved 15 May 2025.
- ^ Botha, Joubert; Black, Philip; Leibbrandt, Murray; Koch, Steven F (April 2015). "Johannes de Villiers Graaf" (PDF). Royal Economic Society (169): 24–25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 April 2022. Retrieved 7 April 2021 – via l.
- ^ Leake, Chauncey D. (14 October 1960). "Meeting: British Association for the Advancement of Science". Science. 132 (3433): 1023–1024. Bibcode:1960Sci...132.1023L. doi:10.1126/science.132.3433.1023. PMID 17820679.
External links
Media related to George Paget Thomson at Wikimedia Commons
- Annotated Bibliography for George Paget Thomson from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Archived 4 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- Portraits of Sir George Paget Thomson at the National Portrait Gallery
- George Thomson biography at Wageningen University
- A history of the electron: JJ and GP Thomson published by the University of the Basque Country
- The Papers of Sir George Paget Thomson at the Churchill Archives Centre
- George Paget Thomson on Nobelprize.org
