Arthur Compton

Arthur Holly Compton (Wooster, Ohio, September 10, 1892 - Berkeley, California, March 15, 1962) was an American physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927.

Biography

Arthur Compton and Werner Heisenberg in Chicago (1929)

Solvay Conference of 1927. We can observe Arhtur Holly Compton in the sixth position of the second row, starting with the left, sitting right behind Albert Einstein

Compton pass at Hanford Base. Here, he used a false name for security reasons because it's just the basis of the Manhattan Project.

Compton was born in Wooster, Ohio and attended Wooster College and Princeton University. In 1923 he was a professor of physics at the University of Chicago. During his stay at this university, Compton directed the laboratory in which the first nuclear chain reaction occurred, which caused him to play a relevant role in the Manhattan Project, the research that developed the first atomic bomb.

From 1945 to 1953 Compton was Chancellor of the University of Washington and after 1954 was Professor of Natural Philosophy.

Scientific research

His studies of X-rays led him to discover in 1923 the so-called Compton effect, the change in wavelength of high-energy electromagnetic radiation when scattered by electrons. The discovery of this effect confirmed that electromagnetic radiation has both wave and particle properties, a central tenet of quantum theory.

For his discovery of the Compton effect and for his investigation of cosmic rays and of the reflection, polarization, and spectra of X-rays he shared the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics with British physicist Charles Wilson.

He was awarded, in 1940, the Hughes Medal, awarded by the Royal Society «for his discovery of the Compton effect; and for his work on cosmic rays ».

Death

Compton died, aged 69, in Berkeley, California, of a brain hemorrhage on March 15, 1962. He was buried in Wooster Cemetery in Wooster, Ohio.

Acknowledgments

Awards

• 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics.
• 1940 Franklin Medal.

Eponyms

• In his honor, as well as in his brother Karl Taylor Compton, he baptized the Compton crater of the Moon.
• Also, the asteroid (52337) Compton, discovered on 2 September 1992 by Freimut Börngen and Lutz D. Schmadel also bears its name.

Works

• X-rays and electrons (X-Rays and Electrons1926)
• The Freedom of Man (Freedom of man), 1935
• X-rays in theory and experimental practice (X-Rays in Theory and Experiment, 1935), written in collaboration with S. K. Allison
• Human Meaning of Science (The Human Meaning of Science), 1940
• Atomic Quest: A Personal Narrative (The atomic search: a personal story), 1956
• The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton (Arthur Holly Compton's cosmos), 1967