Charles Wilson

Charles Wilson was born on the 14th of February, 1869, in the parish of Glencorse, near Edinburgh. When Wilson was four years old, his father died and his mother moved with the family to Manchester, where he was educated at Owen's College (now the University of Manchester). Having been granted an entrance scholarship in 1888 he went on to Cambridge ( Sidney Sussex College), where he took his degree in 1892. It was here that he became interested in the physical sciences, especially physics and chemistry.

During the summer of 1896, it was firmly established by J.J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford that the conductivity of air was indeed due to ionization of the gas. There was no longer any doubt that ions in gases could be detected. Wilson's appointment as Clerk Maxwell Student, at the end of that year, enabled him to research further. Most of his work on the behaviour of ions as condensation nuclei was carried out in the years 1895-1900. Early in 1911, he was the first person to see and photograph the tracks of individual alpha- and beta-particles and electrons. However it was not until 1923 that the cloud chamber was brought to perfection, leading to his two, beautifully illustrated, classic papers on the tracks of electrons. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1927, "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour".

Some of the most important achievements using the Wilson chamber were:

• the demonstration of the existence of Compton recoil electrons, (Compton shared the Nobel Prize with Wilson in 1927);
• the discovery of the positron by Anderson (who was awarded the Nobel Prize for 1936 for this feat);
• the visual demonstration of the processes of "pair creation" and "annihilation" of electrons and positrons by Blackett and Occhialini, and;
• the demonstration of the transmutation of atomic nuclei carried out by Cockcroft and Walton.

Thus, Rutherford's remark that the cloud chamber was "the most original and wonderful instrument in scientific history" has been fully justified.

In 1908, Wilson married Jessie Fraser, daughter of Rev. G. H. Dick of Glasgow. They had two sons and two daughters. He died on the 15th of November, 1959, in the midst of his family.