Background
Thomson was born in Cambridge, England, the son of physicist and Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson and Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of George Edward Paget.
physicist university professor nuclear scientist
Thomson was born in Cambridge, England, the son of physicist and Nobel laureate J. J. Thomson and Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of George Edward Paget.
Attended Perse School, Cambridge, Bachelor of Arts, Cantab (Trinity), 1913, Master of Arts, 1916, Doctor of Science, Lisbon, Cambridge, Sheffield. Trinity College, Dublin, Reading, U. Wales, Westmister (Fulton). Doctor of Hebrew Literature, Ursinus.
Thomson went to The Perse School, Cambridge before going on to read mathematics and physics at Trinity College, Cambridge, until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, when he was commissioned into the Queen"s Royal West Surrey Regiment. After brief service in France, he worked on aerodynamics at Farnborough and elsewhere. He resigned his commission as a Captain in 1920.
After briefly serving in the First World War Thomson became a Fellow at Cambridge and then moved to the University of Aberdeen.
George Thomson was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937 for his work in Aberdeen in discovering the wave-like properties of the electron. The prize was shared with Clinton Joseph Davisson who had made the same discovery independently.
Between 1929–1930 Thomson was a Non–Resident Lecturer at Cornell University, Ithaca, New New York In 1930 he was appointed Professor at Imperial College London in the chair of the late Hugh Longbourne Callendar.
In the late 1930s and during the Second World War Thomson specialised in nuclear physics, concentrating on practical military applications.
In particular Thomson was the chairman of the crucial MAUD Committee in 1940–1941 that concluded that an atomic bomb was feasible. In later life he continued this work on nuclear energy but also wrote works on aerodynamics and the value of science in society. Thomson stayed at Imperial College until 1952, when he became Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
In 1964, the college honoured his tenure with the George Thomson Building, a work of modernist architecture on the college"s Leckhampton campus.
In addition to winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, Thomson was knighted in 1943.
Fellow, instructor Corpus Christi, Cambridge, 1914, 1919-1922. Served with Infantry division France, 1914-1915, with R.A.F., 1915-1919 on aeronautical research, chairman (British) Committee on Atomic Energy, 1940-1941, scientific liaison officer, Ottawa, 1941-1942, deputy chairman radio board (British), 1942-1943, scientific adviser, Air Ministry, 1943-1944). Fellow Royal Society.
Member British Association Advancement of Science (president 1960).
Member American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member Church of England.
Club: Athenaeum (London).
Married Kathleen Buchanan Smith, September 18, 1924 (died). Children: John Adam, Lilian Clare, David Paget, Caroline Rose Buchanan.