Patrick Blackett
CH FRS | |
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Born | Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett 18 November 1897 London, England |
Died | 13 July 1974 London, England | (aged 76)
Resting place | Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England |
Alma mater |
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Known for | |
Spouse |
Constanza Bayon (m. 1924) |
Children | 2 |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | |
Academic advisors | Ernest Rutherford |
Doctoral students | |
Other notable students | |
Signature | |
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett,
Early life and education
Blackett was born in
In August 1914 on the outbreak of
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
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
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
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
In August 1940 Blackett became scientific adviser to Lieutenant General
Politics
Blackett became friends with
Publications
- Fear, War, and the Bomb: The Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (1948)
- — (1956). Atomic Weapons and East/West Relations. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-04268-0.
- Studies of War: Nuclear and Conventional (1962)
Influence in fiction
- Blackett's theories of planetary magnetism and gravity were taken up by the science fiction author antigravitydrive.
- In his close friend novel sequence Strangers and Brothers (1940–1974), aspects of Blackett's personality are drawn upon for the left-wing physicist Francis Getliffe.[22]
- Blackett and his dictum, "You can't run a war on gusts of emotion", appear in the 'alternative' WWII novel, Gravity's Rainbow.[23]
Personal life
Blackett was an agnostic or atheist.
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
In popular culture
Blackett was portrayed by James D'Arcy in the 2023 film Oppenheimer.
See also
References
- EThOS uk.bl.ethos.601680. Archived from the originalon 6 December 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
- ^ "SpaandanB Project: Imdad-Sitara Khan Scholarship". www.spaandanb.org. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ "::ISKKC::". www.iskkc.org. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- OCLC 56753298.
- ^ S2CID 74674634.
- .
- ^ 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
- .
- S2CID 144374364.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30822. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-1-4419-6280-5.
- ISBN 0854030778.
- ISBN 9780674015487.
- ^ Lovell 1976, pp. 3–5
- ^ 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
- ^ "Rutherford's Nuclear World: The Story of the Discovery of the Nucleus | Sections | American Institute of Physics".
- ^ "Patrick Blackett: Physicist, United Kingdom (Nobel Prize Winner, Scientist)". ahf.nuclearmuseum.org. Retrieved 19 July 2023.
- S2CID 4241357.
- ^ "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.
- ISBN 978-0-09-151580-5.
- ISBN 978-0-7146-5317-4.
- S2CID 122615883..
- ^ Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow (Picador 1973) p. 12
- ^ "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.
- ^ "No. 43667". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1965. p. 5496.
- ^ "No. 44460". The London Gazette. 24 November 1967. p. 12859.
- ^ "No. 44776". The London Gazette. 28 January 1969. p. 1008.
- S2CID 4275713.
- ^ "Rare double blue plaque award for home of Nobel Prize winners". BBC News. 20 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
- ^ Parken, Oliver (29 July 2022). "Royal Navy Christens New Experimental Ship, The XV Patrick Blackett". TheDrive.
Further reading
- Books
- ISBN 978-0-674-01548-7.
- ISBN 978-0307595966.
- Kirtley, Allan; Longbottom, Patricia; Blackett, Martin (2013). A History of the Blacketts. The Blacketts. ISBN 978-0-9575675-0-4.
- Articles
- Times Obituary July 1974
- Staff. Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett website of www.nobel-winners.com
- Patrick Blackett on Nobelprize.org
- Blog, Patrick M.S. Blackett Biography about his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation.
- Staff. The Imperial College Physics Department (the 'Blackett Lab') website of Imperial College London
External links
- Media related to Patrick Blackett at Wikimedia Commons
- Television appearance[permanent dead link]
- Oral History interview transcript with Patrick Blackett on 17 December 1962, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - interview conducted by John L. Heilbron at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, England
- Nobelprize.org biography
- Biography of Patrick Blackett from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)
- Works by or about Patrick Blackett at Internet Archive
- Newspaper clippings about Patrick Blackett in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW