George Paget Thomson was born on 3 May 1892 inCambridge, England, the son of physicist and Nobel laureateJ. J. Thomson and Rose Elisabeth Paget, the daughter ofGeorge Edward Paget.[6]
Whereas Thomson's father,J. J. Thomson (winner of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics), had seen theelectron as aparticle, the son demonstrated that the electron could bediffracted like awave.[7] By scattering electrons through thin metallic films (3 × 10−8 m thick) with known crystal structures, such as aluminium, gold and platinum, he found the dimensions of the observed diffraction patterns. In each case, his observed diffractions were within 5 percent of the predicted values given byLouis de Broglie's wave theory. This discovery provided further evidence for the principle ofwave–particle duality, which had first been posited by de Broglie in the 1920s as what is often called thede Broglie hypothesis.
In 1929, Thomson became a non-resident lecturer atCornell University inIthaca, New York.[6] In 1930, he was appointed Professor of Physics atImperial College London. In the late 1930s and duringWorld War II, he specialised innuclear physics, concentrating on practical military applications. In particular, he was the chairman of the crucialMAUD Committee in 1940–1941 that concluded that anatomic bomb was feasible. In later life, he continued this work on nuclear energy, but also wrote works onaerodynamics and the value of science in society.
From 1952 to 1962, Thomson served asMaster of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. In 1964, the college honoured his tenure with the George Thomson Building, a work of modernist architecture on the college'sLeckhampton campus.
Thomson gave the address "Two aspects of science" as President of theBritish Association for 1959–1960.[8]
Thomson died on 10 September 1975 inCambridge at the age of 83. He is buried inGrantchester parish churchyard to the south of Cambridge.
In 1924, Thomson married Kathleen Buchanan Smith, the daughter ofGeorge Adam Smith, who served as Principal of theUniversity of Aberdeen (1909–1935). They had two sons and two daughters. Kathleen died in 1941.[9]
One of their sons,John Thomson (1927–2018), became a senior diplomat who served as High Commissioner to India (1977–1982) and as Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1982–1987). Their grandson,Adam Thomson (born 1955), also became a senior diplomat, serving as High Commissioner to Pakistan (2010–2013) and as Permanent Representative to NATO (2014–2016). Another son, David Paget Thomson (1931–2022), was a merchant banker.[10] One daughter, Lillian Clare Thomson (born 1929), married the South African economist and mountaineerJohannes de Villiers Graaff.[11]
"For his distinguished contributions to many branches of atomic physics, and especially for his work in establishing the wave properties of the electron."
^Botha, Joubert; Black, Philip; Leibbrandt, Murray; Koch, Steven F (April 2015)."Johannes de Villiers Graaf"(PDF).Royal Economic Society (169):24–25. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 8 April 2022. Retrieved7 April 2021 – via l.
