Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson CH (
February 14,
1869 –
November 15,
1959) was a
Scottish physicist.
He was born in the
parish of Glencorse,
Midlothian to a farmer, John Wilson, and his mother Annie Clerk Harper. After his father died in
1873, his family moved to
Manchester. He was educated at
Owen's College, studying
biology with the intent to become a
physician. He then went to
Cambridge University where he became interested in
physics and
chemistry.
He thereafter became particularly interested in
meteorology, and in
1893 he began to study clouds and their properties. He worked for some time at the
observatory on
Ben Nevis, where he made observations of cloud formation. He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale in the
laboratory in
Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container. He later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber caused by
ions and
radiation. For the invention of the
cloud chamber he received the
Nobel Prize in
1927.
He married Jessie Fraser in
1908, the daughter of a
minister from
Glasgow, and the couple had four children. He died near
Edinburgh, surrounded by his family.
The
Wilson crater on the
Moon is co-named for him,
Alexander Wilson and
Ralph Elmer Wilson.
Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Isaac Asimov, 2nd ed., Doubleday & C., Inc., ISBN 0385177712.
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Charles Thomson Rees Wilsons biography
