15.
A Laboratory Among Many
In
1954 Nevill Mott became the new Professor. He recognised
that the Cavendish was now 'one good laboratory among
many' and that physics research in the rest of the world
had caught up with Cambridge.
In
1957 F.P. Bowden's laboratory from Physical Chemistry
was incorporated into the Cavendish, bringing with it
£50,000 of funding. Two years later a fourth floor
was added to the Austin Wing, mainly to house theoretical
physics. Theoreticians, treated as useful 'mathematical
handymen' by Rutherford, now had a place alongside the
experimentalists.
The
Cavendish developed two interesting new areas of science
in this period. The first, radio astronomy, was an indirect
result of the Cavendish research in radio physics during
the Second World War. In 1962 Ryle had a Radio Astronomy
Observatory established for £180,000.
The
second subject, molecular biology, had begun to develop
under Bragg. It was this science that led to Francis
Crick and James Watson's 1953 discovery of DNA in the
Cavendish. Unfortunately this new area had developed
so quickly that there was no space to house it in the
Cavendish and in 1962 the new school of molecular biology
moved to a separate laboratory built using money from
the Medical Research Council. The Cavendish lost its
new science, and the MRC Lab grew rapidly, with 130
workers by 1970.
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