![]() ![]() The principal fruit of his Cambridge appointment was the collaboration with Fowler on a new method of developing statistical mechanics. These researches were probably Darwin’s most important contribution to theoretical physics.Īfter service in World War I, in which he engaged in some early work on acoustic gun ranging, Darwin was appointed fellow and lecturer of Christ’s College, Cambridge, a post he held until 1922, when he spent a year in the United States as visiting professor at the California Institute of Technology. In these he anticipated by many years the classic work of P. Moseley, produced a series of papers which laid the foundation for all subsequent interpretation of X-ray diffraction by crystals. He soon turned to X-ray diffraction as a subject on which he could exercise his mathematical powers and, after some experimental work with H. He began research on the absorption of alpha rays and for a time showed interest in the dynamics of Rutherford’s nuclear atom model. After leaving Cambridge, Darwin became a postgraduate student with Ernest Rutherford at Manchester. His training in applied mathematics was particularly strong, although there was little emphasis on contemporary developments in theoretical physics. Fowler) (2) educational and scientific administration (3) world sociological and technical problems, with special reference to population.ĭarwin was educated at Cambridge University, where he held a major scholarship in Trinity CollegeĪnd took an honors degree in the mathematical tripos in 1910. His contributions to science were in three different, although related, areas of activity: (1) theoretical research in optics (particularly X-ray diffraction), atomic structure, and statistical mechanics (in collaboration with R. ![]() ![]() Cambridge, 31 December 1962)Īpplied mathematics, theoretical and general physics.ĭarwin was the grandson of Charles Darwin and the son of George Darwin. ![]()
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