Wilson was born in the parish ofGlencorse,Midlothian to Annie Clark Harper and John Wilson, a sheep farmer. After his father died in 1873, he moved with his family toManchester. With financial support from his step-brother he studied biology atOwens College, now the University of Manchester, with the intent of becoming a doctor. In 1887, he graduated from the college with aBSc. He won a scholarship to attendSidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he became interested in physics and chemistry. In 1892 he received 1st class honours in both parts of theNatural Science Tripos.[3][4][5]
He became particularly interested inmeteorology, and in 1893 he began to study clouds and their properties. Beginning in 1894, he worked for some time at theobservatory onBen Nevis,[6] where he made observations of cloud formation. He was particularly fascinated by the appearance ofglories.[7] He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale at theCavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container.
In 1895 he 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.[8] UnderJ. J. Thomson's mentorship by 1896 he found out thatX-rays stimulate the condensation just as well as dust.[9]
He later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber by condensation ontoions generated byradioactivity. Several of his cloud chambers survive.[10]
Wilson was made Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and University Lecturer and Demonstrator in 1900.[2] He was known by some as a poor lecturer, due to a pronounced stutter,[11] but he did teach a course onatmospheric electricity as a visiting lecturer atImperial College London.[12]
In 1906 he hypothesized thatcosmic radiation might generate the ions causing condensation without apparent reasons.[13]
The invention of the cloud chamber was by far Wilson's signature accomplishment, earning him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1927.[5] The Cavendish laboratory praised him for the creation of "a novel and striking method of investigating the properties of ionized gases".[14] The cloud chamber allowed huge experimental leaps forward in the study of subatomic particles and the field of particle physics, generally. Some have credited Wilson with making the study of particles possible at all.[7]
Commemorative plaque atBen Nevis about the observatory there, and C.T.R. Wilson's cloud chamber
Wilson published numerous papers on meteorology and physics, on topics includingX-rays,[15]ionization,[16] thundercloud formation,[17] and other meteorological events.[7] 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]
Retrospectively, Wilson's experimental method has received some attention from scholars.
In a period of scientific inquiry characterized 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.[20] Wilson's work "made things visible whose properties had only previously been deduced indirectly".[7]
He has been called "almost the last of the great individual experimenters in physics".[11] He used his cloud chamber in various ways to demonstrate the operating principles of things like subatomic particles and X-rays.[15][16] But his primary interest, and the subject of the bulk of his papers, was meteorology.[20]
For the invention of the cloud chamber he received theNobel Prize in Physics in 1927.[7][5] He shared this prize with the American physicistArthur Compton, rewarded for his work on the particle nature of radiation.[19] Despite Wilson's great contribution to particle physics, he remained interested in atmospheric physics, specificallyatmospheric electricity, for his entire career.[22][23]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]
In 1908, Wilson married Jessie Fraser, the daughter of aminister fromGlasgow. The couple had four children. His family knew him as patient and curious, and fond of taking walks in the hills near his home.[18] He died at his home inCarlops on 15 November 1959, surrounded by his family.[3]
^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): A00E50.Bibcode:2010JGRA..115.0E50W.doi:10.1029/2009JA014581.ISSN2156-2202.
^Phillipson, Tacye (December 2016). "Surviving Apparatus Showing the Early Development of the Cloud Chamber".Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society.
^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.
^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.
