Charles Thomson Rees Wilson was born on 14 February 1869 inGlencorse, Scotland, the son of John Wilson, a sheep farmer, and Annie Clark Harper. After his father died in 1873, he moved with his family toManchester, England.
Wilson became particularly interested inmeteorology, and in 1893 he began to study clouds and their properties. Beginning in 1894, he worked for some time at the observatory onBen Nevis,[8] where he made observations of cloud formation. He was particularly fascinated by the appearance ofglories.[9] He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale in theCavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container.
In 1895, Wilson discovered that at a large enough expansion, ratio supersaturated water vapour condensates even without dust which he removed by previous condensations, contrary to the previous research byJohn Aitken.[10] UnderJ. J. Thomson's mentorship by 1896, he found out thatX-rays stimulate the condensation just as well as dust.[11]
In 1906, Wilson hypothesised thatcosmic radiation generates the ions causing condensation without apparent reasons.[14]
Wilson published numerous papers on meteorology and physics, on topics including X-rays,[15]ionisation,[16] thundercloud formation,[17] and other meteorological events.[9] Wilson may also have observed asprite in 1924, 65 years before their official discovery.[18] Weather was a focus of his work throughout his career, from his early observations at Ben Nevis to his final paper, on thunderclouds.[19][17]
The invention of thecloud chamber was by far Wilson's signature accomplishment, earning him theNobel Prize in Physics in 1927.[7] TheCavendish Laboratory praised him for the creation of "a novel and striking method of investigating the properties of ionised gases".[20] The cloud chamber allowed huge experimental leaps forward in the study ofsubatomic particles and the field ofparticle physics, generally. Some have credited Wilson with making the study of particles possible at all.[9]
Commemorative plaque atBen Nevis about the observatory there, and Wilson's cloud chamber
Wilson later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber by condensation ontoions generated byradioactivity. Several of his cloud chambers survive.[21]
Retrospectively, Wilson's experimental method has received some attention from scholars.
In a period of scientific inquiry characterised by a divide between "analytical" and "morphological" scientists, Wilson's method of inquiry represented a hybrid. While some scientists believed phenomena should be observed in pure nature, others proposed laboratory-controlled experiments as the premier method for inquiry. Wilson used a combination of methods in his experiments and investigations.[22] Wilson's work "made things visible whose properties had only previously been deduced indirectly".[9]
Wilson has been called "almost the last of the great individual experimenters in physics".[12] He used his cloud chamber in various ways to demonstrate the operating principles of things like subatomic particles andX-rays.[15][16] But his primary interest, and the subject of the bulk of his papers, wasmeteorology.[22]
In 1908, Wilson married Jessie Fraser, the daughter of aminister fromGlasgow. They had four children. His family knew him as patient and curious, and fond of taking walks in the hills near his home.[18]
Wilson died on 15 November 1959 at his home inCarlops at the age of 90, surrounded by his family.[5]
For the invention of thecloud chamber, Wilson received theNobel Prize in Physics in 1927.[9][7] He shared this prize with the American physicistArthur Compton, who was rewarded for his work on the particle nature of radiation.[19] Despite Wilson's great contribution to particle physics, he remained interested inatmospheric physics, specificallyatmospheric electricity, for his entire career.[24][25]For example, his last research paper, published in 1956 when he was in his late eighties (at that time he was the oldest FRS to publish a paper in the Royal Society's journals), was on atmospheric electricity.[17]
^Williams, Earle R. (1 August 2010). "Origin and context of C. T. R. Wilson's ideas on electron runaway in thunderclouds".Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.115 (A8) 2009JA014581: A00E50.Bibcode:2010JGRA..115.0E50W.doi:10.1029/2009JA014581.ISSN2156-2202.
^A history of the Cavendish laboratory 1871–1910.With 3 portraits in a collotype and 8 other illustrations. London. 1910.hdl:2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t0ns19f2h.
^Phillipson, Tacye (December 2016). "Surviving Apparatus Showing the Early Development of the Cloud Chamber".Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society.
^Glasstone, Samuel; Dolan, Philip J., eds. (1977).The effects of nuclear weapons (3rd ed.). Washington: U.S. Department of Defense. p. 45.hdl:2027/uc1.31822004829784.
