Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Owen Willans Richardson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Owen Willans Richardson | |
|---|---|
 Owen Willans Richardson (right) Solvay conference, 1927 |
|
| Born | April 26, 1879 Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England |
| Died | February 15, 1959 (aged 79) Alton, Hampshire, England |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Field | Physics |
| Institutions | Cavendish Laboratory |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Thermionics |
| Notable prizes | Hughes Medal (1920) Nobel Prize in Physics (1928) |
Sir Owen Willans Richardson (April 26, 1879 - February 15, 1959) was a British physicist, a professor at Princeton University from 1906 to 1913, and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928 "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him".
Richardson was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England, the only son of Joshua Henry and Charlotte Maria Richardson. He was educated at Batley Grammar School, and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1900 having gained First Class Honours in Natural Science.
In 1914 Richardson became professor of physics at King's College London, where he was later made director of research. He retired in 1944.
He was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Royal Society (of which he was a Fellow) in 1920 for his work in thermionics, which is the basis for the vacuum tube.
He also researched the photoelectric effect, the gyromagnetic effect, the emission of electrons by chemical reactions, soft X-rays, and the spectrum of hydrogen.
He was knighted in 1939. He died in 1959 aged 79.
Richardson's nephew was physicist Richard Davisson whose father Clinton Davisson was also a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate.
- Nobel Foundation (1928). Owen Willans Richardson: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1928. Les Prix Nobel. Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
|
|
|---|
|
Jean Perrin (1926) • Arthur Compton / Charles Wilson (1927) • Owen Richardson (1928) • Louis de Broglie (1929) • C. V. Raman (1930) • Werner Heisenberg (1932) • Erwin Schrödinger / Paul Dirac (1933) • James Chadwick (1935) • Victor Hess / Carl Anderson (1936) • Clinton Davisson / George Thomson (1937) • Enrico Fermi (1938) • Ernest Lawrence (1939) • Otto Stern (1943) • Isidor Rabi (1944) • Wolfgang Pauli (1945) • Percy Bridgman (1946) • Edward Appleton (1947) • Patrick Blackett (1948) • Hideki Yukawa (1949) • Cecil Powell (1950) |
Categories: United Kingdom physicist stubs | 1879 births | 1959 deaths | Alumni of King's College London | Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge | English Nobel laureates | English physicists | Fellows of the Royal Society | Nobel laureates in Physics | People from Dewsbury | Princeton University faculty | Theoretical physicists