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Cockcroft's Follies
Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, (27 May 1897 – 18 September 1967) was a British physicist who shared with Ernest Walton the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power. After service on the Western Front with the Royal Field Artillery during the Great War, Cockcroft studied electrical engineering at Manchester Municipal College of Technology whilst he was an apprentice at Metropolitan Vickers Trafford Park and was also a member of their research staff. He then won a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he sat the tripos exam in June 1924, becoming a wrangler. Ernest Rutherford accepted Cockcroft as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory, and Cockcroft completed his doctorate under Rutherford's supervision in 1928. With Ernest Walton and Mark Oliphant he built what became known as a Cockcroft–Walton generator. Cockcroft and Walton used this to perform the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Todmorden
Todmorden ( ; ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is north-east of Manchester, south-east of Burnley and west of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Halifax. In 2011 it had a population of 15,481. Todmorden is at the confluence of three steep-sided Pennines, Pennine valleys and is surrounded by moorlands with outcrops of Aeolian processes, sandblasted gritstone. The Historic counties of England, historic boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire is the River Calder, West Yorkshire, River Calder and its tributary, Walsden Water, which run through the town. The administrative border was altered by the Local Government Act 1888 placing the whole of the town within the West Riding of Yorkshire, West Riding. The town is served by and railway stations. History Toponymy The name Todmorden first appears in 1641. The town had earlier been called Tottemerden, Totmardene, Totmereden or Totmerd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atoms For Peace Award
The Atoms for Peace Award was established in 1955 through a grant of $1,000,000 by the Ford Motor Company Fund. An independent nonprofit corporation was set up to administer the award for the development or application of peaceful nuclear technology. It was created in response to U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace speech to the United Nations. The 23 recipients were: *1957 – Niels Bohr *1958 – George C. de Hevesy *1959 – Leó Szilárd and Eugene Paul Wigner *1960 – Alvin M. Weinberg and Walter Henry Zinn *1961 – Sir John Cockcroft *1963 – Edwin M. McMillan and Vladimir I. Veksler *1967 – Isidor I. Rabi, W. Bennett Lewis and Bertrand Goldschmidt *1968 – Sigvard Eklund, Abdus Salam, and Henry DeWolf Smyth *1969 – Aage Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson, Floyd L. Culler, Jr., Henry Kaplan, Anthony L. Turkevich, Mikhail IoffeM.S.Ioffe was forced to decline the Award by the Soviet government and Compton A. Rennie *1969 – Dwight D. Eisenhower ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main theatres of war during the First World War. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The German advance was halted with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, which changed little except during early 1917 and in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties during attacks and counter-attacks and no significant advances were made. Among the most costly of these offensives were the Battle of Verdun, in 1916, with a combined 700,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear ''fission'' of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear ''decay'' processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as ''Voyager 2''. Generating electricity from fusion power, ''fusion'' power remains the focus of international research. Most nuclear power plants use thermal reactors with enriched uranium in a Nuclear fuel cycle#Once-through nuclear fuel cycle, once-through fuel cycle. Fuel is removed when the percentage of neutron poison, neutron absorbing atoms becomes so large that a nuclear chain reaction, chain reaction can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site spent fuel pools before being tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Nucleus
The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment. After the discovery of the neutron in 1932, models for a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons were quickly developed by Dmitri Ivanenko and Werner Heisenberg. An atom is composed of a positively charged nucleus, with a cloud of negatively charged electrons surrounding it, bound together by electrostatic force. Almost all of the mass of an atom is located in the nucleus, with a very small contribution from the electron cloud. Protons and neutrons are bound together to form a nucleus by the nuclear force. The diameter of the nucleus is in the range of () for hydrogen (the diameter of a single proton) to about for uranium. These dimensions are much smaller than the diameter of the atom itself (nucleus + electron cloud), by a factor of about 26,634 (uranium atomic radiu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernest Walton
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate. He is best known for his work with John Cockcroft to construct one of the earliest types of particle accelerator, the Cockcroft–Walton generator. In experiments performed at Cambridge University in the early 1930s using the generator, Walton and Cockcroft became the first team to use a particle beam to transform one element to another. According to their Nobel Prize citation: "Thus, for the first time, a nuclear transmutation was produced by means entirely under human control." Early years Ernest Walton was born in Abbeyside, Dungarvan, County Waterford to a Methodist minister father, Rev John Walton (1874–1936) and Anna Sinton (1874–1906). In those days a general clergyman's family moved once every three years, and this practice carried Ernest and his family, while he was a small child, to Rathkeale, County Limerick (where his mother died) and to County Monaghan. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate causes of phenomena, and usually frame their understanding in mathematical terms. Physicists work across a wide range of research fields, spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic and particle physics, through biological physics, to cosmological length scales encompassing the universe as a whole. The field generally includes two types of physicists: experimental physicists who specialize in the observation of natural phenomena and the development and analysis of experiments, and theoretical physicists who specialize in mathematical modeling of physical systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. Physicists can apply their knowledge towards solving practical problems or to developing new technologies (also known as applie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hawthorne
Sir William Rede Hawthorne CBE, FRS, FREng, FIMECHE, FRAES, (22 May 1913 – 16 September 2011) was a British professor of engineering who worked on the development of the jet engine. Bragg-Hawthorne equation is named after him. Life Hawthorne was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, the son of a civil engineer from Belfast. He had two younger brothers, John and Edward. He was educated at Westminster School, London, then read mathematics and engineering at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1934 with a double first. He spent two years as a graduate apprentice with Babcock & Wilcox Ltd, then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, where his research on laminar and turbulent flames earned him a ScD two years later. In 1939 he married Barbara Runkle (d. 1992, granddaughter of MIT's second President John Daniel Runkle), and they had one son and two daughters. After MIT, he returned to Babcock & Wilcox. In 1940, he joined the Royal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its chairman of trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its Royal Charter and Statutes were approved by the Queen, in August 1960. It is situated on the outskirts of Cambridge, away from the traditional centre of the city, but close to the University's main new development zone (which now houses the Centre for Mathematical Sciences). It has of grounds, the largest area of the Cambridge colleges. Churchill was the first formerly all-male college to decide to admit women, and was among three men's colleges to admit its first women students in 1972. Within 15 years all others had followed suit. The college has a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Order Of Alfonso X, The Wise
The Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise ( es, Orden Civil de Alfonso X el Sabio) is a Spanish civil order established in 1939, recognising activities in the fields of education, science, culture, higher education and research. The order was created on 23 May 1902 by Royal decree as the Order of Alfonso XII. In 1988 the order was reformed and given its current name. The main innovation of the 1988 reform was to discontinue the previous award's practice of distinguishing male and female achievements, thereby eliminating explicit sexual discrimination. Grades The Civil order of Alfonso X, the Wise is divided into the following grades: * Collar. Awarded to heads of state or government, heads of high state institutions, and heads of international organizations. This grade is awarded by Royal Decree with the proposal of the Ministry of Education (Spain), Minister of Education, the Order's Grand Chancellor. Holders of the collar are granted the honorific The Most Excellent. It is limited ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of Christ (Portugal)
The Military Order of Christ is the former order of Knights Templar as it was reconstituted in Portugal. Before 1910 it was known as the Royal Military Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Order of the Knights of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It was founded in 1319, with the protection of Denis of Portugal, King Denis of History of Portugal, Portugal, after the Templars were abolished on 22 March 1312 by the papal bull, ''Vox in excelso'', issued by Pope Clement V. King Denis refused to pursue and persecute the former knights as had occurred in most of the other sovereign states under the political influence of the Catholic Church. Heavily swayed by Philip IV of France, Pope Clement had the Knights Templar annihilated throughout France and most of Europe on charges of heresy, but Denis revived the Templars of Tomar as the Order of Christ, largely for their aid during the ''Reconquista'' and in the reconstruction of Portugal after the wars. Denis negotiated with Clement's successor, Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chevalier De La Legion D'Honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, it has been retained (with occasional slight alterations) by all later French governments and regimes. The order's motto is ' ("Honour and Fatherland"); its seat is the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur next to the Musée d'Orsay, on the left bank of the Seine in Paris. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction: ' (Knight), ' (Officer), ' (Commander), ' (Grand Officer) and ' (Grand Cross). History Consulate During the French Revolution, all of the French orders of chivalry were abolished and replaced with Weapons of Honour. It was the wish of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, to create a reward to commend civilians and soldiers. From this wish was instituted a , a body of men that was not an order of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
