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J. J. Thomson and the emergence of the Cavendish School, 1885–1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Dong-Won Kim
Dong-Won Kim
Affiliation:
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 373–1, Kusung-dong, Yusung-ku, Taejon 305–701, Korea.
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Extract

The history of the Cavendish Laboratory is a fascinating subject to study, not just because this famous centre of experimental physics produced a large number of Nobel Laureates but also because it gives us an insight into the unique milieu of the Cambridge physics community. The evolution of the Cavendish Laboratory, however, was not as smooth as might be expected, and the prestige and reputation of its first directors – James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Rayleigh, Joseph John Thomson and Ernest Rutherford – did not automatically guarantee a rosy future. Like other British physics laboratories in the late nineteenth century, the Cavendish Laboratory was a new species to meet the pressure and demand from society. Since it propagated new values and modes of doing science, a struggle with old traditions could not be avoided, and the early history of the Cavendish Laboratory illustrates how the ‘old’ and ‘new’ values fought and negotiated each other in late Victorian Cambridge.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 191 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1995

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References

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