Abstract
THE twenty-fourth Guthrie Lecture of the Physical Society will be delivered at 5.30 on February 26 at the Royal Institution by Prof. P. M. S. Blackett, professor of physics in the University of Manchester. The subject of the lecture is "Cosmic Rays: Recent Developments". Prof. Blackett served with the Royal Navy in 1914–19, having previously been at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth. After the War he exchanged a naval for a scientific career and went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge. In the Cavendish Laboratory he began work with the Wilson cloud chamber, a technique of research to which he has remained faithful. His work during 1923–1933 was concerned with the alpha particle. He showed that alpha particles make nuclear collisions in which energy and momentum are very accurately conserved, but he also investigated collisions resulting in nuclear disintegration, and showed, for the first time, that in a Rutherford disintegration of the nitrogen nucleus the alpha particle is absorbed and a proton liberated.
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Guthrie Lecturer of the Physical Society. Nature 145, 292 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145292b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145292b0