James Chadwick, discoverer of the neutron

James Chadwick

20 October 1891, Bollington, UK - 24 July 1974, Cambridge, UK.

Studied at Manchester University, graduating from the School of Physics in 1911. He continued his scientific training with Hans Geiger in Berlin in 1913. There he was caught up in the First World War and was detained in Germany until the end of the war.

Two years after his return to Cambridge, he obtained his PhD in 1921 and began working at the Cavendish Laboratory with the renowned Ernest Rutherford, who had theorised on the structure of atomic nuclei, formed in his conception by protons and electrons.

In 1932, after bombarding beryllium with alpha particles, Chadwick experimentally demonstrated the presence of the neutron in the atom, a particle with a mass similar to that of the proton but with no electric charge. He proposed his atomic model, thus completing the atomic structure previously proposed by Rutherford.

Chadwick published his findings in the journal Nature. However, his research did not attempt to delve deeper into the proper functions of the neutron in the atomic nucleus, a task that was taken over by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, marking the beginning of quantum physics.

In 1935, Chadwick moved to Liverpool after falling out with Rutherford, who did not approve of the construction of a cyclotron, and there he taught physics at the University. That same year he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the neutron.

In 1945, he was knighted for his scientific work, retiring from active work in 1948.

From 1957 to 1962 he was a part-time member of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

If you want to know the atomic model he developed, click on the button below:

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