Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
1869–1959, Parish of Glencorse, Midlothian, Scotland, Carlops, Peeblesshire, Scotland
Scottish physicist who invented the cloud chamber to study condensation in gases; he received the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Wilson was born in the parish of Glencorse near Edinburgh and studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. His observations of the scenery around Ben Nevis inspired his study of clouds and condensation. From experiments producing artificial clouds, he developed the cloud chamber, which reveals trails of tiny droplets formed along the paths of ionizing particles.
The chamber became a foundational instrument for observing subatomic particles and was later used by researchers including Anderson in the discovery of the positron. Wilson received half of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible through condensation of vapour.
Nobel-winning work
C. T. R. Wilson shared the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics (with Compton) 'for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour'. His cloud chamber, perfected from 1911, condensed supersaturated water vapour on ions left along particle tracks. It became the essential instrument of early particle physics — positron, muon and strange particles were discovered with it.
Workplaces: University of Cambridge
United Kingdom