Abstract
THE award of the Nobel prize for Physics for 1935 to Prof. James Chadwick and that of Chemistry for 1935 to M. and Mme. Joliot-Curie are associated with two of the most important discoveries of recent years, that of the neutron and of artificial radioactivity. Prof. Chadwick worked in Lord Rutherford's laboratory, and M. and Mme. Joliot-Curie in that of Mme. Curie, and it will be felt by all how fitting it is that these two latest awards should be connected in this way with the two great founders of nuclear physics. In 1919, Prof. Chadwick went with Lord Rutherford to Cambridge from Manchester, where he had taken his degree and worked before the War. His first research in the Cavendish Laboratory, on the scattering of a-particles, still remains one of the most important direct determinations of the nuclear charge of the elements. Then for many years he worked in collaboration with Lord Rutherford on the artificial disintegration of the elements by a-particles. These fundamental researches really laid the foundations on which modern nuclear physics is built. The scintillation method of counting the particles was the only certain method available at that time, and further advance was checked by its limitations. Prof. Chadwick was intimately connected with the development of electrical methods of counting, and applied them to a detailed study of the disintegration of some of the light elements. These investigations were of the highest importance since they yielded precise information about the nuclear energy levels.
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Nobel Prize for Physics: Prof. J. Chadwick. Nature 136, 824 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136824a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136824a0