Abstract
The announcement of the award of the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1947 to Sir Edward Appleton is one which will be received with great satisfaction by scientific men everywhere, and particularly by workers in pure and applied physics. Sir Edward Appleton has achieved renown in two spheres, either of which might be considered as forming a sufficiently full life for a lesser man of science. He has for more than a quarter of a century been the most active worker in the field of radio physics, and during this period he has conducted research work of the most far-reaching importance. Since 1939, also, he has been secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, a position which gives him the responsibilities and duties of the leading man of science in the Government service of Britain. Appleton displayed his great scientific ingenuity and experimental skill in December 1924, when he demonstrated the existence of the Heaviside layer as an ionized region of the atmosphere capable of reflecting electromagnetic waves. Shortly afterwards, he discovered another and higher region—the Appleton layer—from which the shorter radio waves are reflected after they have penetrated the lower region. From that time onwards Appleton has conducted a continuous series of researches on the characteristics of the ionosphere, and the part they play in determining the mode of propagation of radio waves round the earth. The techniques developed in the course of these investigations provided the foundations for the development of radar in Great Britain, while the results of the research on the ionosphere have proved invaluable in forecasting and allocating the most suitable frequencies for practical radio communication, broadcasting and other applications. More recently, Sir Edward Appleton, in cooperation with other workers, has devoted attention to the reflexion of radio waves from meteors, and has demonstrated that sunspots are powerful sources of very short radio waves.
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Nobel Prizes for 1947: Sir Edward Appleton, G.B.E., K.C.B., F.R.S. Nature 160, 703–704 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160703c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160703c0