Lawrence Bragg
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
William Lawrence Bragg
Nobel Prize in Physics 1915
Born: 31 March 1890, Adelaide, Australia
Died: 1 July 1971, Ipswich, United Kingdom
Affiliation at the time of the award: Victoria University, Manchester, United Kingdom
Prize motivation: “for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays”
Prize share: 1/2
Life
Lawrence Bragg was born in Adelaide in Australia, where his father was a professor. When Bragg was 19, the family moved to Great Britain, where he studied at Cambridge. He carried out his Nobel Prize-awarded work when he was only 23, partly in collaboration with his father. After his pioneering contributions, Bragg continued to be a central figure within his scientific field. Among other things, he was a professor in Manchester and Cambridge and at the Royal Institution in London. He married in 1921 and had four children.
Work
Max von Laue's discovery that diffraction patterns occur when X-rays pass through crystals inspired William and Lawrence Bragg to conduct their own studies in the area. Their contributions included establishing the relationship between the wavelength of the X-ray, its angle of incidence, and the distance between the atomic layers inside the crystal. This provided a powerful tool for studying crystals' structures. Using diffraction pattern methods, it now also became possible to calculate the positions of atoms in crystalline structures.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
