Abstract
THE Cavendish Laboratory is faced with problems which are common to most scientific laboratories in this post-war period, and arise from the great expansion in the numbers of undergraduate and graduate students. Part of this increase is a temporary phenomenon. Men are being released from the Forces who have missed the whole or part of their undergraduate time at the university, and are returning to swell the classes. The increase in the first- and second-year students at Cambridge is perhaps not as great as it is in other universities, because the undergraduate population is limited by college accommodation ; in physics these classes at present are some 50 per cent greater than they were before the War. The numbers in the final honours class, however, have almost trebled, because men returning from war-work for the most part join this class, which now has about a hundred and twenty students. It will probably remain considerably higher than its pre-war level, because the recommendations of the Barlow Report reflect the need of the nation for more scientists, and demand is creating a supply. The greatest increase of all is in the number of research students, and here the Laboratory is crowded to capacity, if not overcrowded. Although all available places are used, the number of those who apply for admission as research students is three or four times as great as the number which can be accepted each year. More than a hundred and sixty researchers are now working in the Laboratory, of whom 110 are research students working for their Ph.D. degrees—between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total number registered for research degrees in Cambridge.
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BRAGG, L. Organisation and Work of the Cavendish Laboratory*. Nature 161, 627–628 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161627a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161627a0