Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Noble Laureate and Scottish physicist and meteorologist died on November 15th 1959.
C.T .R, as he became known , is also the only Scottish-born physicist ever to have won the Prize for Physics.
C.T.R. was inspired by the cloud formations he had witnessed on Ben Nevis. He started out attempting to recreate clouds in his laboratory, but his invention and experiments led on to massive strides in the science of particle physics. The search for the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider is the latest stage in the hunt for answers about fundamental particles of life, however, in the late 19th Century, very little was known about protons, neutrons and electrons. Photons, neutrinos, muons and quarks were a long way from being discovered.
C.T.R. was given the Nobel Prize in 1927 “for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour” - but essentially it was for his invention of the cloud chamber. Throughout his career, he got the opportunity to conduct research, teach and work as a reader and demonstrator at the Cambridge university. His most significant works include his observation on the formation of clouds and subsequent development of the cloud chamber, research on the behaviour of ions and so on.
He was honoured with several other awards and recognitions for his research and contribution to physics. Throughout his life, he remained active in the field of science and during his retirement, he shifted to Edinburgh, and later to the village of Carlops at Glencorse. During this time, he worked on his manuscript on the ‘theory of thundercloud electricity’. He died on 15th November 1959 in Edinburgh aged 90.
Pics are of the man himself, his cloud chamber and commemorative plaques at Ben Nevis about the observatory there and near his birthplace in Midlothian.