Sir Owen Willans Richardson,
FRS[ (26 April 1879 – 15 February 1959) was a British ]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 caus ...
who won the Nobel Prize in Physics
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, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
in 1928 for his work on thermionic emission
Thermionic emission is the liberation of electrons from an electrode by virtue of its temperature (releasing of energy supplied by heat). This occurs because the thermal energy given to the charge carrier overcomes the work function of the mate ...
, which led to Richardson's law
Thermionic emission is the liberation of electrons from an electrode by virtue of its temperature (releasing of energy supplied by heat). This occurs because the thermal energy given to the charge carrier overcomes the work function of the mater ...
.
Biography
Richardson was born in Dewsbury
Dewsbury is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Hudder ...
, Yorkshire, England, the only son of Joshua Henry and Charlotte Maria Richardson. He was educated at Batley Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, where he gained First Class Honours in Natural Sciences. He then got a DSc from University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
in 1904.
After graduating in 1900, he began researching the emission of electricity from hot bodies at the Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in Cambridge, and in October 1902 he was made a fellow at Trinity. In 1901, he demonstrated that the current from a heated wire seemed to depend exponentially on the temperature of the wire with a mathematical form similar to the Arrhenius equation
In physical chemistry, the Arrhenius equation is a formula for the temperature dependence of reaction rates. The equation was proposed by Svante Arrhenius in 1889, based on the work of Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff who had noted in 18 ...
. This became known as Richardson's law: "If then the negative radiation is due to the corpuscles coming out of the metal, the saturation current ''s'' should obey the law ."
Richardson was professor at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
from 1906 to 1913, and returned to the UK in 1914 to become Wheatstone Professor of Physics at King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, where he was later made director of research. In 1927, he was one of the participants of the fifth Solvay Conference
The Solvay Conferences (french: Conseils Solvay) have been devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point i ...
on Physics that took place at the International Solvay Institute for Physics in Belgium. He retired in 1944, and died in 1959. He is buried in Brookwood Cemetery
Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regist ...
.
He also researched the photoelectric effect
The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid st ...
, the gyromagnetic effect, the emission of electrons by chemical reactions, soft X-rays
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 Picometre, picometers to 10 Nanometre, nanometers, corresponding to frequency, ...
, and the spectrum of hydrogen.
Richardson married Lilian Wilson, sister of his Cavendish colleague Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...
, in 1906, and had two sons and a daughter. Richardson's own sister married the American physicist (and 1937 Nobel laureate) Clinton Davisson
Clinton Joseph Davisson (October 22, 1881 – February 1, 1958) was an American physicist who won the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of electron diffraction in the famous Davisson–Germer experiment. Davisson shared the Nobel Priz ...
, who was Richardson's PhD student at Princeton. After Lilian's death in 1945, he was remarried in 1948 to Henriette Rupp, a physicist.
Owen Willans Richardson had a son, Harold Owen Richardson, who specialised in Nuclear Physics and was also the chairman of the Physics Department at Bedford College, London University and later on became emeritus professor at London University.
Honours
Richardson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1913,[ and was awarded its ]Hughes Medal
The Hughes Medal is awarded by the Royal Society of London "in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications". Named after David E. Hughes, the medal is awarded with ...
in 1920. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928, "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him".Nobel prize citation, Nobel foundation website
/ref> He was knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
in 1939.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Richardson, Owen Willans
1879 births
1959 deaths
20th-century British physicists
Academics of King's College London
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
British Nobel laureates
Burials at Brookwood Cemetery
Fellows of King's College London
Fellows of the Royal Society
Knights Bachelor
Nobel laureates in Physics
People educated at Batley Grammar School
People from Dewsbury
Princeton University faculty
Royal Medal winners
Presidents of the Physical Society
Theoretical physicists