Nobel Prize

Owen Willans Richardson was born on the 26th of April, 1879, at Dewsbury, Yorkshire, England, as the only son of Joshua Henry and Charlotte Maria Richardson. Educated at Batley Grammar School, he proceeded to Cambridge in 1897, having obtained an Entrance Major Scholarship at Trinity College; he gained First Class Honours in Natural Science at…

Walter H. Brattain was born in Amoy, China, on February 10, 1902, the son of Ross R. Brattain and Ottilie Houser. He spent his childhood and youth in the State of Washington and received a B.S. degree from Whitman College in 1924. He was awarded the M.A. degree by the University of Oregon in 1926…

I was born in 1933 in New York City to Frederick and Eva Weinberg. My early inclination toward science received encouragement from my father, and by the time I was 15 or 16 my interests had focused on theoretical physics. I received my undergraduate degree from Cornell in 1954, and then went for a year…

Having been born in 1932, at the peak of the great depression, I grew up in difficult times. My parents worked extraordinarily hard to give us economic stability but at the same time they managed to instill in me two qualities which became the foundation of my personal and professional life. One is an unbounded…

Edward Victor Appleton was born in Bradford, England, on 6th September, 1892, the son of Peter and Mary Appleton. He received his early education at Hanson Grammar School. Bradford then took his B.A. degree in Natural Science at St. John’s College, Cambridge,, in 1913 and 1914, with physics for Part II. He won the Wiltshire…

Abdus Salam was born in Jhang, a small town in what is now Pakistan, in 1926. His father was an official in the Department of Education in a poor farming district. His family has a long tradition of piety and learning. When he cycled home from Lahore, at the age of 14, after gaining the…

I was born in Bad Kissingen (Franconia) in 1921. At that time my father, Ludwig, was 45 years old. He was one of twelve children of a rural ‘Viehhändler’ (small-time cattle dealer). Since the age of eighteen he had been cantor and religious teacher for the little Jewish community, a job he still held when…

  Born 28th June 1943 in Schroda (Posen), German nationality.   February 1962 Abitur in Quakenbruck.   April 1962 to March 1969 Technical University Braunschweig Diploma in Physics. Title of diploma work: “Lifetime Measurements on InSb” (Prof. F. R. Keßler).   May 1969 to Nov. 1980 University Würzburg (Prof. Dr. G. Landwehr) Thesis work about:…

Charles Glover Barkla was born on June 7, 1877 at Widnes, Lancashire, England, where his father, J.M. Barkla, was Secretary to the Atlas Chemical Company. He was educated at the Liverpool Institute and entered University College, Liverpool, in 1894 to study mathematics and physics, the latter under Oliver Lodge. He graduated with First Class Honours…

Johannes Stark was born on April 15, 1874 in Schickenhof, Bavaria; his father was a landed proprietor. He was educated at the Gymnasium (grammar school) in Bayreuth and later in Regensburg and proceeded to Munich University in 1894 to read physics, mathematics, chemistry and crystallography. Stark graduated in 1897 on the basis of his doctoral…