Francis William Aston

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Francis William Aston
Duddell Medal and Prize (1944)
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry, physics
InstitutionsTrinity College, Cambridge
Doctoral advisorPercy F. Frankland[citation needed]
Other academic advisorsJ. J. Thomson
John Henry Poynting[1]
William A. Tilden[1]

Francis William Aston

mass spectrograph, of isotopes in many non-radioactive elements and for his enunciation of the whole number rule.[3][4] He was a fellow of the Royal Society[2] and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.[5]

Biography

Early life

Mason College, before its incorporation into the University of Birmingham; this building was destroyed in 1964.

Francis Aston was born in

fermentation chemistry
at the school of brewing in Birmingham and was employed by W. Butler & Co. Brewery in 1900. This period of employment ended in 1903 when he returned to the University of Birmingham under Poynting as an Associate.

Research

With a scholarship from the

Aston dark space.[8][9][10]

After the death of his father, and a trip around the world in 1908, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 1909 but moved to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge on the invitation of J. J. Thomson in 1910.[citation needed]

Birmingham University awarded him a BSc in Applied/Pure Science in 1910[citation needed] and a DSc in Applied/Pure Science in 1914.[11]

Joseph John Thomson revealed the nature of the

mass spectrometer was the result of these experiments.[12]

Replica of Aston's third mass spectrometer

It was speculations about isotopy that directly gave rise to the building of a mass spectrometer capable of separating the isotopes of the chemical elements. Aston initially worked on the identification of

First World War stalled and delayed his research on providing experimental proof for the existence of isotopes by mass spectroscopy and during the war, Aston worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough as a Technical Assistant working on aeronautical coatings.[citation needed
]

After the war, he returned to research at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and completed building his first mass spectrograph that he reported on in 1919.[13] Subsequent improvements in the instrument led to the development of a second and third instrument of improved mass resolving power and mass accuracy. These instruments employing electromagnetic focusing allowed him to identify 212 naturally occurring isotopes. In 1921, Aston became a member of the International Committee on Atomic Weights[14] and a fellow of the Royal Society[2] and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry the following year.[15]

His work on isotopes also led to his formulation of the whole number rule which states that "the mass of the oxygen isotope being defined [as 16], all the other isotopes have masses that are very nearly whole numbers", a rule that was used extensively in the development of nuclear energy. The exact mass of many isotopes was measured leading to the result that hydrogen has a 1% higher mass than expected by the average mass of the other elements. Aston speculated about the subatomic energy and the use of it in 1936.

Isotopes[16] and Mass-spectra and Isotopes[17] are his most well-known books.

Private life and death

External videos
Chemical Heritage Foundation

In his private life, he was a sportsman,

Gordon Bennett auto race in Ireland in 1903. Not content with these sports he also engaged in swimming, golf, especially with Rutherford and other colleagues in Cambridge,[18] tennis, winning some prizes at open tournaments in England Wales and Ireland and learning surfing in Honolulu in 1909. Coming from a musical family, he was capable of playing the piano, violin and cello at a level such that he regularly played in concerts at Cambridge. He visited many places around the globe on extensive travel tours starting from 1908 with a trip to Australia and New Zealand which he visited again in 1938–1939.[2][19]

Aston was a skilled photographer and interested in

Hokkaido, Japan on June19th 1936. He also planned to attend expeditions to South Africa in 1940 and Brazil
in 1945 in later life. He never married.

Aston died in Cambridge on 20 November 1945 at the age of 68.[5]

Legacy

The

lunar crater Aston
was named in his honour.

The British Mass Spectrometry Society awards the Aston Medal in his honour.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Francis W. Aston - Biographical". NobelPrize.org. The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  2. ^
    S2CID 191531223
    .
  3. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1922". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 14 April 2008.
  4. doi:10.1039/a804629h
    .
  5. ^ a b "Dr. F.W. Aston Dies. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1922. Noted for His Work With Isotopes. In Tour of This Country 23 Years Ago, He Foresaw the Releasing of New Energy. Developed Isotopes. Headed Atom Committee. Lectured in This Country". The New York Times. 22 November 1945. Retrieved 6 August 2010. The death of Dr. Francis William Aston, fellow of the Royal Society and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was announced today. He was 68 years old.
  6. ^ Plaque #1616 on Open Plaques
  7. ISBN 9780081003794
    .
  8. JSTOR 92589
    .
  9. S2CID 93793736
    .
  10. JSTOR 93257
    .
  11. ^ "University of Birmingham - the University's Nobel Prize winners". Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
  12. ^ Jones, Mark. "Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry". American Chemical Society. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  13. ISSN 1941-5982
    .
  14. doi:10.1021/ja01657a001
    .
  15. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1922". The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 22 October 2023. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1922 was awarded to Francis William Aston "for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule"
  16. ^ Aston, Francis William (1922). Isotopes. London: E. Arnold. p. 152.
  17. ^ Aston, Francis William (1933). Mass-Spectra and Isotopes. London: Edward Arnold.
  18. PMID 17546675
    .
  19. S2CID 25747367
    .

External links
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