Patrick Blackett

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

CH FRS
Patrick Blackett, c. 1948
Born
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett

(1897-11-18)18 November 1897
London, England
Died13 July 1974(1974-07-13) (aged 76)
London, England
Resting placeKensal Green Cemetery, London, England
Alma mater
Known for
Spouse
Constanza Bayon
​
(m. 1924)​
Children2
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
Academic advisorsErnest Rutherford
Doctoral students
Other notable students
Signature
Giuseppe (Beppo) P.S. Occhialini (1907–1993) and Patrick Blackett (1897–1974) in 1932 or 1933

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett,

operational research. His views saw an outlet in third world development and in influencing policy in the Labour government of the 1960s.[8][9][10]

Early life and education

Blackett was born in

model aeroplanes and crystal radio. When he went for interview for entrance to the Royal Naval College, Osborne, Isle of Wight, Charles Rolls had completed his cross-channel flight the previous day and Blackett who had tracked the flight on his crystal set was able to expound lengthily on the subject. He was accepted and spent two years there before moving on to Dartmouth where he was "usually head of his class".[12]

In August 1914 on the outbreak of

RNAS but his application was refused. In October that year he became a sub-lieutenant on HMS P17 on Dover patrol, and in July 1917 he was posted to HMS Sturgeon in the Harwich Force under Admiral Tyrwhitt.[13] Blackett was particularly concerned by the poor quality of gunnery in the force compared with that of the enemy and of his own previous experience, and started to read science textbooks. He was promoted to lieutenant in May 1918, but had decided to leave the Navy. Then, in January 1919, the Admiralty sent the officers whose training had been interrupted by the war to the University of Cambridge for a course of general duties. On his first night at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he met Kingsley Martin and Geoffrey Webb, later recalling that he had never before, in his naval training, heard intellectual conversation. Blackett was impressed by the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory, and left the Navy to study mathematics and physics at Cambridge.[14]

Career and research

After graduating from Magdalene College in 1921, Blackett spent ten years working at the Cavendish Laboratory as an experimental physicist with Ernest Rutherford and in 1923 became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, a position he held until 1933.

Rutherford had found out that the nucleus of the

alpha particles into nitrogen. He asked Blackett to use a cloud chamber to find visible tracks of this disintegration, and by 1925, he had taken 23,000 photographs showing 415,000 tracks of ionized particles. Eight of these were forked, and this showed that the nitrogen atom-alpha particle combination had formed an atom of fluorine, which then disintegrated into an isotope of oxygen 17 and a proton. Blackett published the results of his experiments in 1925.[15] He thus became the first person to deliberately transmute one element into another.[16]

During his time at Cambridge, he became the supervisor of the young American graduate J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer's desire to study theoretical physics rather than focus on lab work brought him into conflict with Blackett. While seeking help for a psychiatric breakdown induced by the demanding Blackett, Oppenheimer admitted to trying to poison his tutor with an apple laced with toxins. Blackett did not eat the apple and no action was taken over the attempted poisoning.[17]

Blackett spent some time in 1924–1925 at

atomic spectra. In 1932, working with Giuseppe Occhialini, he devised a system of Geiger counters which took photographs only when a cosmic ray particle traversed the chamber. They found 500 tracks of high energy cosmic ray particles in 700 automatic exposures. In 1933, Blackett discovered fourteen tracks which confirmed the existence of the positron and revealed the now instantly recognisable opposing spiral traces of positron/electron pair production.[citation needed] This work and that on annihilation radiation made him one of the first and leading experts on antimatter
.

That year he moved to Birkbeck, University of London, as professor of Physics for four years. Then in 1937 he went to the Victoria University of Manchester where he was elected to the Langworthy Professorship and created a major international research laboratory. The Blackett Memorial Hall and Blackett lecture theatre at the University of Manchester were named after him.

In 1947, Blackett introduced

electromagnetic force and the force of gravity. He spent a number of years developing high-quality magnetometers to test his theory, and eventually found it to be without merit. His work on the subject, however, led him into the field of geophysics, where he eventually helped process data relating to paleomagnetism and helped to provide strong evidence for continental drift
.

In 1948 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his investigation of cosmic rays using his invention of the counter-controlled cloud chamber.

Blackett was appointed head of the Physics Department of Imperial College London in 1953 and retired in July 1963. The Physics department building of Imperial College, the Blackett Laboratory, is named in his honour.

In 1957 Blackett gave the presidential address ("Technology and World Advancement") to the British Association meeting in Dublin.[18] In 1965 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Continental Drift".[19]

World War II and operational research

In 1935 Blackett was invited to join the

Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1933[5] and awarded its Royal Medal
in 1940.

In August 1940 Blackett became scientific adviser to Lieutenant General

Strategic Bombing Survey
proved Blackett correct.

Politics

Blackett became friends with

computer industry
. He did not enter open politics, but worked for a year as a civil servant. He remained deputy chairman of the Minister's Advisory Council throughout the administration's life, and was also personal scientific adviser to the Minister.

Publications

Influence in fiction

Personal life

Blackett was an agnostic or atheist.

Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 1965 Birthday Honours,[25] and was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1967.[26] He was created a life peer on 27 January 1969 as Baron Blackett, of Chelsea in Greater London.[27] He was made President of the Royal Society in 1965. The crater Blackett on the Moon
is named after him.

Blackett married Constanza Bayon (1899–1986) in 1924. They had one son and one daughter.

The Blackett Laboratory is part of Imperial College Faculty of Natural Sciences and has housed the Physics Department since its completion in 1961.

Blackett died on 13 July, 1974 at the age 76. His ashes are buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery, London.

Bernard Lovell wrote of Blackett: "Those who worked with Blackett in the laboratory were dominated by his immensely powerful personality, and those who knew him elsewhere soon discovered that the public image thinly veiled a sensitive and humane spirit".[5]

Edward Bullard said that he was the most versatile and best loved physicist of his generation and that his achievement was also without rival: "he was wonderfully intelligent, charming, fun to be with, dignified and handsome".[28]

In 2016, the house that Blackett lived in from 1953 to 1969 (48 Paultons Square, Chelsea, London) received an English Heritage blue plaque.[29]

In July 2022, the

XV Patrick Blackett (X01) will be used by the Royal Navy to experiment with autonomous technologies.[30]

In popular culture

Blackett was portrayed by James D'Arcy in the 2023 film Oppenheimer.

See also

References

  1. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.601680. Archived from the original
    on 6 December 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  2. ^ "SpaandanB Project: Imdad-Sitara Khan Scholarship". www.spaandanb.org. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  3. ^ "::ISKKC::". www.iskkc.org. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
  4. OCLC 56753298
    .
  5. ^
    S2CID 74674634
    .
  6. doi:10.1063/1.3128879
    .
  7. ^ Blackett, Patrick Maynard Stewart (2 February 1925). "The Ejection of Protons From Nitrogen Nuclei, Photographed by the Wilson Method". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 107(742), p. 349–360
  8. doi:10.1109/mahc.2007.4338448
    .
  9. S2CID 144374364
    .
  10. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30822. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  11. ISBN 978-1-4419-6280-5
    .
  12. ISBN 0854030778
    .
  13. ISBN 9780674015487
    .
  14. ^ Lovell 1976, pp. 3–5
  15. ^ Blackett, Patrick Maynard Stewart (2 Feb. 1925) "The Ejection of Protons From Nitrogen Nuclei, Photographed by the Wilson Method", Journal of the Chemical Society Transactions. Series A, 107(742), pp. 349–60
  16. ^ "Rutherford's Nuclear World: The Story of the Discovery of the Nucleus | Sections | American Institute of Physics".
  17. ^ "Patrick Blackett: Physicist, United Kingdom (Nobel Prize Winner, Scientist)". ahf.nuclearmuseum.org. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
  18. S2CID 4241357
    .
  19. ^ "Hugh Miller Macmillan". Macmillan Memorial Lectures. The Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders in Scotland Limited. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  20. ISBN 978-0-09-151580-5
    .
  21. ISBN 978-0-7146-5317-4
    .
  22. S2CID 122615883
    ..
  23. ^ Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (Picador 1973) p. 12
  24. ^ "The grandson of a vicar on his father’s side, Blackett respected religious observances that were established social customs, but described himself as agnostic or atheist." Mary Jo Nye: "Blackett, Patrick Maynard Stuart." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. 19 p. 293. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008.
  25. ^ "No. 43667". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1965. p. 5496.
  26. ^ "No. 44460". The London Gazette. 24 November 1967. p. 12859.
  27. ^ "No. 44776". The London Gazette. 28 January 1969. p. 1008.
  28. S2CID 4275713
    .
  29. ^ "Rare double blue plaque award for home of Nobel Prize winners". BBC News. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  30. ^ Parken, Oliver (29 July 2022). "Royal Navy Christens New Experimental Ship, The XV Patrick Blackett". TheDrive.

Further reading

Books
Articles

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by 5th Langworthy Professor at the University of Manchester
1937–53 		Succeeded by
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by 52nd President of the Royal Society
1965–1970 		Succeeded by
Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
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