The Langworthy Professor is the holder of an endowed chair in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, UK.
It was founded by a bequest of £10,000 for the purpose of endowing a professorship of experimental physics by the businessman and politician E. R. Langworthy at Owens College, Manchester in 1874. [1] Owens College later became the Victoria University of Manchester (1904) and then the University of Manchester (2004).
Several Langworthy Professors have been Nobel Laureates, including Ernest Rutherford, Lawrence Bragg, Patrick Blackett, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, was a New Zealand physicist who was a pioneering researcher in both atomic and nuclear physics. Rutherford has been described as "the father of nuclear physics", and "the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday". In 1908, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances." He was the first Oceanian Nobel laureate, and the first to perform the awarded work in Canada.
The University of Manchester is a public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester City Centre on Oxford Road. The university owns and operates major cultural assets such as the Manchester Museum, The Whitworth art gallery, the John Rylands Library, the Tabley House Collection and the Jodrell Bank Observatory – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The University of Manchester is considered a red brick university, a product of the civic university movement of the late 19th century. The current University of Manchester was formed in 2004 following the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester. This followed a century of the two institutions working closely with one another.
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named after the British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish. The laboratory has had a huge influence on research in the disciplines of physics and biology.
Sir William Lawrence Bragg, was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915, "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays"; an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography.
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett was a British experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism, awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. In 1925 he became the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another. He also made a major contribution in World War II advising on military strategy and developing operational research. His views saw an outlet in third world development and in influencing policy in the Labour government of the 1960s.
The Cavendish Professorship is one of the senior faculty positions in physics at the University of Cambridge. It was founded on 9 February 1871 alongside the famous Cavendish Laboratory, which was completed three years later. William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire endowed both the professorship and laboratory in honor of his relative, chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish.
Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and observations, such as Galileo's experiments, to more complicated ones, such as the Large Hadron Collider.
Sir Franz Arthur Friedrich Schuster was a German-born British physicist known for his work in spectroscopy, electrochemistry, optics, X-radiography and the application of harmonic analysis to physics. Schuster's integral is named after him. He contributed to making the University of Manchester a centre for the study of physics.
The Solvay Conferences have been devoted to preeminent unsolved problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point in the world of physics, and are ongoing.
George Dixon Rochester, FRS was a British physicist known for having co-discovered, with Sir Clifford Charles Butler, a subatomic particle called the kaon.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester is one of the largest and most active physics departments in the UK, taking around 250 new undergraduates and 50 postgraduates each year, and employing more than 80 members of academic staff and over 100 research fellows and associates. The department is based on two sites: the Schuster Laboratory on Brunswick Street and the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in Cheshire, international headquarters of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Langworthy may refer to:
The Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) is one of the three faculties that comprise the University of Manchester in northern England. Established in October 2004, the faculty was originally called the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. It was renamed in 2016, following the abolition of the Faculty of Life Science and the incorporation of some aspects of life sciences into the departments of Chemistry and Earth and Environmental Sciences. It is organised into 2 schools and 9 departments: Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science; Chemistry; Computer Science; Earth and Environmental Sciences; Physics and Astronomy; Electrical & Electronic Engineering; Materials; Mathematics; and Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering.
Sir Andre Konstantin Geim is a Russian-born Dutch–British physicist working in England in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester.
Fellowship of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) is "the highest level of membership attainable" by physicists who are members of the Institute of Physics (IoP), "for those with a degree in physics or related subject and who have made a significant impact on their sector"; Honorary Fellowship (HonFInstP) is for "exceptional individuals" who can be nominated in recognition of having "contributed to physics generally or to the work of the IOP", working in fields including business, education, research, and policy relating to physics.
Sir Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov is a Russian–British physicist, and a professor at the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, National University of Singapore. He is also the Langworthy Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. His work on graphene with Andre Geim earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.
The Manchester Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology is a centre for interdisciplinary research in mesoscience and nanotechnology headed by Andre Geim at the University of Manchester. The purpose of the centre is to allow researchers to construct devices from a few micrometres down to 10 nanometres in size. It was opened by Lord Sainsbury on 7 April 2003.
The Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science was established in 1889 by the will of Columbia University president Frederick A. P. Barnard, and has been awarded by Columbia University, based on recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences, every five years since 1895. It is not to be confused with the Barnard Medal of Distinction.
Evan James Williams FRS was a Welsh experimental physicist who worked in a number of fields with some of the most notable physicists of his day, including Patrick Blackett, Lawrence Bragg, Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr.