Background
Blackett was born in Kensington, London, the son of Arthur Stuart Blackett, a stockbroker, and his wife Caroline Maynard. He was educated in England's naval colleges, Osborne and Dartmouth, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Blackett was born in Kensington, London, the son of Arthur Stuart Blackett, a stockbroker, and his wife Caroline Maynard. He was educated in England's naval colleges, Osborne and Dartmouth, and at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
Blackett entered Osborne Royal Naval College in 1910 and matriculated with other cadets to Dartmouth Royal Naval College in 1912. In January 1919, the Admiralty sent him to Cambridge along with other officers whose study had been interrupted in 1914.
After earning his undergraduate degree in 1921 and gaining election to a Bye-Fellowship at Magdalene College, Blackett became a research postgraduate student under Ernest Rutherford in the autumn of 1921 at the Cavendish Laboratory.
After serving with the Royal Navy throughout World War I, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett became a fellow at King's College (1923-1933); professor of physics at Birkbeck College, London (1933-1937); and in 1937 Langworthy professor of physics at the University of Manchester. Blackett was one of the famous Cavendish Laboratory team led by Lord Rutherford. He was the first to photograph a nuclear reaction, and in 1933 he showed that cosmic rays produce electron-positron pairs. In World War II Blackett was engaged in operational research. For many years a leader in atomic research, he made discoveries that contributed to the solution of atomic-energy problems. The Nobel Prize was given to him for his improvement on the Wilson cloud chamber, an apparatus that condenses moisture along the path of an invisible moving particle, such as a proton or positron, so that its track becomes visible and may be photographed, and for his discoveries in nuclear physics. In 1948 Blackett published Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy, in which he criticized methods by which Great Britain and the United States had been seeking to assure the international control of atomic energy.
Blackett pioneered operational research during the Second World War, and he was an influential voice in government circles from the 1930 to the 1970 on matters of science and technology policy, science education, nuclear armaments, and British technical aid to India.
Blackett was one of the most versatile experimental physicists of his generation.
He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948 for his development in the 1920 and 1930 of new methods for using C. T. R. Wilson ’s cloud chamber and for his discoveries which included pair production of electrons and positrons in cosmic radiation.
In 1956, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour and in 1967 to the Order of Merit.
Physical Characteristics: Tall and slim, always described as handsome, Blackett was said to be both formidable and charming.
Blackett was married to Costanza Bayon, a student of modern languages at Newnham College, Cambridge.
