Appleton, Sir Edward Victor, 1892-1965 (physicist and principal of the University of Edinburgh)
Dates
- Existence: 1892 - 1965
Biography
Appleton was born in Bradford and educated at local schools and St John's College, Cambridge where he was awarded first class honours and several prizes in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos (1913, 1914). He began research at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge with W.L. Bragg, but during his service in the Army Signals in the First World War he developed the interest in valves and 'wireless' signals which informed his subsequent research career. He returned to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, continuing to work on valves and, with B. van der Pol, on non-linearity, and on atmospherics. In 1924, in collaboration with M.F. Barnett, he performed a crucial experiment which enabled a reflecting layer in the atmosphere to be identified and measured; subsequent research indicated the existence of more than one reflecting layer. From 1924 to 1936 Appleton was Wheatstone Professor of Physics at King's College, London, directing research teams and, in 1932, heading an expedition to Tromsö in northern Norway as part of the programme of observations scheduled for the Second International Polar Year
He was President of the International Union of Scientific Radio (URSI), 1934-1952. In 1936 he succeeded C.T.R. Wilson in the Jacksonian Chair of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge, where he continued collaborative research on many ionospheric problems, including solar and lunar tides in the E-layer. From September 1936 he served on the re-constituted Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Defence (the 'Tizard Committee'), and in October 1938 was appointed successor to Sir Frank Smith as Secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). He remained at the DSIR throughout the Second World War and until 1948 when he was appointed Principal of Edinburgh University. He took up the appointment in May 1949 and remained in office until his death in 1965. Appleton was elected FRS in 1927 (Bakerian Lecture 1937, Hughes Medal 1933, Royal Medal 1950) and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1947 for his investigations into the ionosphere. He was knighted in 1941.
Topics
Found in 833 Collections and/or Records:
Correspondence from C. Størmer to Edward Appleton, 1935, 1937
Correspondence from C. Størmer to Edward Appleton, dated 1935 and 1947.
Correspondence from Cable and Wireless, A. Copisarow and N. Corry to Edward Appleton, 1946
Correspondence from Cable and Wireless to Edward Appleton; correspondence from A. Copisarow to Appleton, including draft report; and correspondence from N. Corry to Appleton. All material is dated 1946.
Correspondence from C.L. Pekeris to Edward Appleton, 1936-1939
Correspondence from C.L. Pekeris to Edward Appleton, dated 1938-1939. The material mainly regarding Appleton and Weekes's note in Nature. It includes a copy of Pekeris's paper on similar subject from 1936, a note of meetings and papers on tides, and correspondence from S. Chapman, 1938 and G.I. Taylor, 1939, on the Krakatoa wave.
Correspondence from colleagues of Edward Appleton, c. 1923-1943
Correspondence from colleagues of Edward Appleton, 1931, 1944
Correspondence from colleagues of Edward Appleton, mostly dated 1944 but containing some earlier references. The material is mainly on the history and inventors of radar. It is filed in alphabetical order from:
W.A.S. Butement, enclosing a copy of his proposal for coastal defence radar, 1931.
R.G.Lloyd.
E.T. Paris, enclosing a request from F.E. Smith for an official record of early radar development to be kept.
Correspondence from colleagues of Edward Appleton, c. 1944
Correspondence from colleagues of Edward Appleton, mostly dated 1944 but containing some earlier references. The material is mainly on the history and inventors of radar. It is filed in alphabetical order from:
R.L. Smith-Rose, including copies of patents, photographs, and some research calculations.
R. Whiddington, enclosing a note by C.S. Prince on his early ‘squegger’ circuit.
Correspondence from C.R. Birch to Edward Appleton, no date and 1935
Correspondence from C.R. Birch to Edward Appleton, no date and 1935.
Correspondence from D. Whitteridge to Edward Appleton, 1956
The material consists of correspondence from D. Whitteridge to Edward Appleton, dated 1956. It relates to natural temperature regulation.
Correspondence from D.F. Martyn to Edward Appleton, 1937, 1948-1955
Correspondence from D.F. Martyn to Edward Appleton, dated 1937, 1948-1955. The material relates to various research problems, U.R.S.I. [Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale], data exchange, and enclosing drafts or headlines for reports.
Correspondence from D.F. Martyn to Edward Appleton, 1948-1949
Correspondence from D.F. Martyn to Edward Appleton, dated 1948-1949. The material mainly relates to U.R.S.I. [Union Radio-Scientifique International] reports.
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