Cavendish Laboratory

{{Infobox university

| name = Cavendish Laboratory

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| image_name = Image: Cavendish-plaque retouch b.jpg

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| caption = Cavendish plaque at original New Museums Site

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| established = 1874

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| affiliation = University of Cambridge

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| head_label = Head of department

| head = Mete Atature

| free_label = Cavendish Professor of Physics

| free = Vacant

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| city = Cambridge

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| country = United Kingdom

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| website = {{URL|https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/}}

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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 after the British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish. The laboratory has had a huge influence on research in the disciplines of physics and biology.

The laboratory moved to its present site in West Cambridge in 1974.

{{As of|2019}}, 30 Cavendish researchers have won Nobel Prizes.{{cite web |url=http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/resources/nobel/about.php |title=Nobel Prize Winners who have worked for considerable periods of time at the Cavendish Laboratory |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060112165035/http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/resources/nobel/about.php |archive-date=2006-01-12}} Notable discoveries to have occurred at the Cavendish Laboratory include the discovery of the electron, neutron, and structure of DNA.

Founding

File:Cavendish Laboratory door.jpg]]

File:Sir Ernest Rutherfords laboratory, early 20th century. (9660575343).jpg

The Cavendish Laboratory was initially located on the New Museums Site, Free School Lane, in the centre of Cambridge. It is named after British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish{{cite web |url=http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/ |title=The History of the Cavendish |date=13 August 2013 |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=17 August 2015 |archive-date=8 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130408185833/http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofcavendi00londuoft |title=A history of the Cavendish laboratory, 1871–1910 |year=1910}} for contributions to science[http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/laboratory/laboratory4_1.htm "Professor and Laboratory "] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118091305/http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/laboratory/laboratory4_1.htm |date=2012-01-18 }}, Cambridge University and his relative William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, who served as chancellor of the university and donated funds for the construction of the laboratory.The Times, 4 November 1873, p. 8

Professor James Clerk Maxwell, the developer of electromagnetic theory, was a founder of the laboratory and the first Cavendish Professor of Physics.Dennis Moralee, [http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/old_maxwell.php "Maxwell's Cavendish"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130915013523/http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/history/old_maxwell.php |date=2013-09-15 }}, from the booklet "A Hundred Years and More of Cambridge Physics" The Duke of Devonshire had given to Maxwell, as head of the laboratory, the manuscripts of Henry Cavendish's unpublished Electrical Works. The editing and publishing of these was Maxwell's main scientific work while he was at the laboratory. Cavendish's work aroused Maxwell's intense admiration and he decided to call the Laboratory (formerly known as the Devonshire Laboratory) the Cavendish Laboratory and thus to commemorate both the Duke and Henry Cavendish.[http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/museum/area1/maxwell.htm "James Clerk Maxwell"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150224014615/http://www-outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/museum/area1/maxwell.htm# |date=2015-02-24 }}, Cambridge University{{cite web |url=http://www.austinmemories.com/page160/page160.html |title=Austin Wing of the Cavendish Laboratory |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121121233127/http://www.austinmemories.com/page160/page160.html |archive-date=2012-11-21}}

Physics

Several important early physics discoveries were made here, including the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson (1897) the Townsend discharge by John Sealy Townsend, and the development of the cloud chamber by C.T.R. Wilson.

Ernest Rutherford became Director of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919. Under his leadership the neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, and in the same year the first experiment to split the nucleus in a fully controlled manner was performed by students working under his direction; John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton.

Physical chemistry

Physical Chemistry (originally the department of Colloid Science led by Eric Rideal) had left the old Cavendish site, subsequently locating as the Department of Physical Chemistry (under RG Norrish) in the then new chemistry building with the Department of Chemistry (led by Lord Todd) in Lensfield Road: both chemistry departments merged in the 1980s.

Nuclear physics

In World War II the laboratory carried out research for the MAUD Committee, part of the British Tube Alloys project of research into the atomic bomb. Researchers included Nicholas Kemmer, Alan Nunn May, Anthony French, Samuel Curran and the French scientists including Lew Kowarski and Hans von Halban. Several transferred to Canada in 1943; the Montreal Laboratory and some later to the Chalk River Laboratories.

The production of plutonium and neptunium by bombarding uranium-238 with neutrons was predicted in 1940 by two teams working independently: Egon Bretscher and Norman Feather at the Cavendish and Edwin M. McMillan and Philip Abelson at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.

Biology

The Cavendish Laboratory has had an important influence on biology, mainly through the application of X-ray crystallography to the study of structures of biological molecules. Francis Crick already worked in the Medical Research Council Unit, headed by Max Perutz{{Cite journal |last1=Blow |first1=D. M. |author-link=David Mervyn Blow |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2004.0016 |title=Max Ferdinand Perutz OM CH CBE. 19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002: Elected F.R.S. 1954 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=50 |pages=227–256 |year=2004 |pmid=15768489 |jstor=4140521 |doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal |last1=Fersht |first1=A. R. |author-link=Alan Fersht |title=Max Ferdinand Perutz OM FRS |doi=10.1038/nsb0402-245 |journal=Nature Structural Biology |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=245–246 |year=2002 |pmid=11914731 |doi-access=free}} and housed in the Cavendish Laboratory, when James Watson came from the United States and they made a breakthrough in discovering the structure of DNA. For their work while in the Cavendish Laboratory, they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, together with Maurice Wilkins of King's College London, himself a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge.

The discovery was made on 28 February 1953; the first Watson/Crick paper appeared in Nature on 25 April 1953. Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, where Watson and Crick worked, gave a talk at Guy's Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday 14 May 1953 which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the News Chronicle of London, on Friday 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life." The news reached readers of The New York Times the next day; Victor K. McElheny, in researching his biography, Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution, found a clipping of a six-paragraph New York Times article written from London and dated 16 May 1953 with the headline "Form of `Life Unit' in Cell Is Scanned." The article ran in an early edition and was then pulled to make space for news deemed more important. (The New York Times subsequently ran a longer article on 12 June 1953). The Cambridge University undergraduate newspaper Varsity also ran its own short article on the discovery on Saturday 30 May 1953. Bragg's original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay Conference on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953 went unreported by the British press.

Sydney Brenner, Jack Dunitz, Dorothy Hodgkin, Leslie Orgel, and Beryl M. Oughton, were some of the first people in April 1953 to see the model of the structure of DNA, constructed by Crick and Watson; at the time they were working at the University of Oxford's Chemistry Department. All were impressed by the new DNA model, especially Brenner who subsequently worked with Crick at Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory and the new Laboratory of Molecular Biology. According to the late Dr. Beryl Oughton, later Rimmer, they all travelled together in two cars once Dorothy Hodgkin announced to them that they were off to Cambridge to see the model of the structure of DNA.Olby, Robert, Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2009, Chapter 10, p. 181 {{ISBN|978-0-87969-798-3}} Orgel also later worked with Crick at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Present site

File:CavendishLab.jpg

File:Cavendish Laboratory III.jpg

File:cmglee_Cambridge_Maxwell_Centre_Cavendish.jpg

File:cmglee_Cambridge_Maxwell_Centre_stairs.jpg

Due to overcrowding in the old buildings, it moved to its present site in West Cambridge in the early 1970s.{{cite web |url=http://map.cam.ac.uk/#52.206989,0.097120,15 |title=West Cambridge Site Location of the Cavendish Laboratory on the University map |access-date=12 July 2014 |archive-date=25 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225212649/http://map.cam.ac.uk/#52.206989,0.097120,15 |url-status=live }} It is due to move again to a third site currently under construction in West Cambridge.{{Cite web |url=https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/caviii |title=Cavendish III – Department of Physics |website=www.phy.cam.ac.uk |language=en |access-date=2019-07-29 |archive-date=2019-07-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712001317/https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/caviii |url-status=dead}}

Nobel laureates at the Cavendish

John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh (Physics, 1904)
Sir J. J. Thomson (Physics, 1906)
Ernest Rutherford (Chemistry, 1908)
Sir William Lawrence Bragg (Physics, 1915)
Charles Glover Barkla (Physics, 1917)
Francis William Aston (Chemistry, 1922)
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson{{Cite journal |last1=Blackett |first1=P. M. S. |author-link1=Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett |year=1960 |title=Charles Thomson Rees Wilson 1869–1959 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=6 |pages=269–295 |publisher=Royal Society |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1960.0037 |s2cid=73384198}} (Physics, 1927)
Arthur Compton (Physics, 1927)
Sir Owen Willans Richardson (Physics, 1928)
Sir James Chadwick (Physics, 1935)
Sir George Paget Thomson{{Cite journal |last=Moon |first=P. B. |author-link=Philip Burton Moon |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1977.0020 |title=George Paget Thomson 3 May 1892 – 10 September 1975 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=23 |page=529 |year=1977 |doi-access=free}} (Physics, 1937)
Sir Edward Victor Appleton (Physics, 1947)
Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett (Physics, 1948)
Sir John Cockcroft{{Cite journal |last1=Oliphant |first1=M. L. E. |author-link1=Mark Oliphant |last2=Penney |first2=L. |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1968.0007 |title=John Douglas Cockcroft. 1897–1967 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=14 |pages=139–188 |year=1968 |s2cid=57116624}} (Physics, 1951)
Ernest Walton (Physics, 1951)
Francis Crick (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)
James Watson (Physiology or Medicine, 1962)
Max Perutz (Chemistry, 1962)
Sir John Kendrew (Chemistry, 1962)
Dorothy Hodgkin{{Cite journal |last1=Dodson |first1=Guy |author-link=Guy Dodson |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2002.0011 |title=Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=48 |pages=179–219 |year=2002 |pmid=13678070 |s2cid=61764553}} (Chemistry, 1964)
Brian Josephson (Physics, 1973)
Sir Martin Ryle (Physics, 1974)
Antony Hewish (Physics, 1974)
Sir Nevill Francis Mott (Physics, 1977)
Philip Warren Anderson (Physics, 1977)
Pyotr Kapitsa (Physics, 1978)
Allan McLeod Cormack (Physiology or Medicine, 1979)
Mohammad Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979)
Sir Aaron Klug{{Cite journal |last1=Amos |first1=L. |last2=Finch |first2=J. T. |title=Aaron Klug and the revolution in biomolecular structure determination |doi=10.1016/j.tcb.2004.01.002 |journal=Trends in Cell Biology |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=148–152 |year=2004 |pmid=15003624}} (Chemistry, 1982)
Didier Queloz (Physics, 2019)

Cavendish Professors of Physics

The Cavendish Professors were the heads of the department until the tenure of Sir Brian Pippard, during which period the roles separated.

James Clerk Maxwell 1871–1879
John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh{{MacTutor Biography|id=Rayleigh|title=John William Strutt}} 1879–1884
Sir Joseph J. Thomson 1884–1919
Ernest Rutherford 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson 1919–1937
Sir William Lawrence Bragg 1938–1953
Sir Nevill Francis Mott 1954–1971
Sir Brian Pippard{{Cite journal |last1=Longair |first1=M. S. |author-link=Malcolm Longair |last2=Waldram |first2=J. R. |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2009.0014 |title=Sir Alfred Brian Pippard. 7 September 1920 – 21 September 2008 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=55 |pages=201–220 |year=2009 |doi-access=}} 1971–1984
Sir Sam Edwards 1984–1995
Sir Richard Friend 1995–2020
Vacant 2020–present

=Heads of department =

Professor Sir Alan Cook 1979–1984
Professor Archie Howie 1989–1997
Professor Malcolm Longair† 1997–2005
Professor Peter Littlewood 2005–2011
Professor James Stirling† 2011–2013
Professor Michael Andrew Parker 2013–2023
Professor Mete Atature 2023 –

† Jacksonian Professors of Natural Philosophy

=Cavendish Groups=

Areas in which the Laboratory has been influential include:-

Shoenberg Laboratory for Quantum Matter,{{cite web |url=http://www-qm.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Quantum Matter group |access-date=16 June 2008 |archive-date=18 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080618063847/http://www-qm.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Gil Lonzarich{{Scopus|id=7003927708|title=Gilbert George Lonzarich}}
Superconductivity Josephson junction, led by Brian Pippard
Theory of Condensed Matter,{{cite web |url=http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Theory of Condensed Matter group |access-date=27 July 2015 |archive-date=11 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150811001851/http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} which is the dominant theoretical group.
Electron Microscopy Group {{cite web |url=http://www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Electron Microscopy Group |access-date=6 August 2013 |archive-date=25 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130325032440/http://www-hrem.msm.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Archie Howie
Radio Astronomy (led by Martin Ryle{{Cite journal |last1=Graham-Smith |first1=F. |author-link=Francis Graham-Smith |doi=10.1098/rsbm.1986.0016 |title=Martin Ryle. 27 September 1918 – 14 October 1984 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=32 |pages=496–524 |year=1986 |s2cid=71422161}} and Antony Hewish), with the Cavendish Astrophysics Groups telescopes being based at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Semiconductor Physics{{cite web |url=http://www.sp.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Semiconductor Physics Group |access-date=16 June 2008 |archive-date=8 October 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031008065728/http://www.sp.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }}
Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics (AMOP) Group{{cite web |url=http://www.amop.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=AMOP group |access-date=2 March 2013 |archive-date=27 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130427085612/http://www.amop.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Zoran Hadzibabic
Nanophotonics group{{cite web |url=http://www.np.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Nanophotonics Group |access-date=2 March 2013 |archive-date=15 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130215114237/http://www.np.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Jeremy Baumberg
Structure and Dynamics Group,{{cite web |url=http://www.sd.phy.cam.ac.uk |title=Structure and Dynamics Group |access-date=2018-11-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151124083122/http://www.sd.phy.cam.ac.uk/# |archive-date=2015-11-24 |url-status=dead}} led by Jacqui Cole
Laboratory for Scientific Computing{{cite web |url=http://www.lsc.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Laboratory for Scientific Computing |access-date=2 March 2013 |archive-date=23 March 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130323070621/http://www.lsc.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Nikos Nikiforakis
Biological and Soft Systems Group{{cite web |url=https://www.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |title=Biological and Soft Systems |access-date=5 February 2021 |archive-date=14 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214005745/https://www.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/ |url-status=live }} led by Pietro Cicuta

Cavendish staff

{{As of|2023}} the laboratory is headed by Mete Atature.{{cite web |url=https://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/directory/ataturem |title=Professor of Physics, Fellow, Director of Studies and Tutor at St. John’s College |date=3 October 2023 |publisher=University of Cambridge }} The Cavendish Professor of Physics is Sir Richard Friend.{{Who's Who |title=FRIEND, Sir Richard (Henry) |id=U16499 |volume=2015 |edition=online Oxford University Press}}

=Notable senior academic staff=

{{As of|2015}} senior academic staff (professors or readers) include:{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012181705/http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/directory/ |archive-date=2014-10-12 |url=http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/directory/ |title=Academic staff at the Cavendish Laboratory |publisher=University of Cambridge}}

Jeremy Baumberg, Professor of Nanoscience and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge
Jacqui Cole, Professor of Molecular Engineering
Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics, Master of Churchill College, Cambridge
Sir Richard Friend, Cavendish Professor of Physics and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge
Stephen Gull, University Professor of Physics
Sir Michael Pepper, Honorary Professor of Pharmaceutical Science in the University of Otago, New Zealand
Didier Queloz, professor at the Battcock Centre for Experimental Astrophysics
James Floyd Scott, professor and director of research
Ben Simons, Herchel Smith Professor of Physics
Henning Sirringhaus, Hitachi Professor of Electron Device Physics and head of Microelectronics and Optoelectronics Group
Sarah Teichmann, principal research associate and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

=Notable emeritus professors=

The Cavendish is home to a number of emeritus scientists, pursuing their research interests in the laboratory after their formal retirement.

Mick Brown, emeritus professor
Volker Heine, emeritus professor
Brian Josephson, emeritus professor
Archibald Howie, emeritus professor
Malcolm Longair, Emeritus Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy
Gil Lonzarich, Emeritus Professor of Condensed Matter Physics and professorial fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge
Bryan Webber, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical High Energy Physics and professorial fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge