William Lawrence Bragg

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Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH, OBE, MC, FRS[2] (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure.

Biography

He was joint winner (with his father, William Henry Bragg) of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915: "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray", an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography. As of 2016, Lawrence Bragg is the youngest ever Nobel Laureate in physics, having received the award at the age of 25 years.

Shortly before receiving the award, his brother was killed during the Gallipoli Campaign (2 September 1915).

Bragg was knighted in 1941.

Bragg was the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, when the discovery of the structure of DNA was reported by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in February 1953.

Work on sound ranging

Bragg's research work was interrupted by both World War I and World War II.

During both wars he worked on sound ranging methods for locating enemy guns.

In this work he was aided by William Sansome Tucker, Harold Roper Robinson and Henry Harold Hemming.

See also

External links