Abstract
The two Braggs, William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg, are the only father and son team to be jointly awarded the Nobel Prize. This was awarded in 1915 based on their work during the period 1912 to 1914, in which they developed a completely new scientific discipline: X-ray crystallography. This subject has grown from strength to strength and around twenty-six Nobel Prizes have been given for work based on their early discoveries. This article is a personal account explaining how the author came to be involved in celebrating their achievements.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.Authier, André. 2013. Early days of X-ray crystallography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2.Glazer, A.M. 2002. The Braggs. Ferroelectrics 267: 35–41.
3.Glazer, A.M. 2003. The Braggs. In Great solid state physicists of the 20th century, eds. J.A. Gonzalo and C.A. Lopez. London: World Scientific.
4.Glazer, A.M. 2006. Megaw, Helen Dick (1907–2002). In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
5.Glazer, A.M. 2015. There ain't nothing like a dame: a commentary on Kathleen Lonsdale (1947) ‘Divergent beam x-ray diffraction’. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 373: 20140232.
6.Hodgkin, D.M. 1975. Kathleen Lonsdale. Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society 41:447.
7.Hunter, Graeme K. 2004. Light is a messenger: the life and science of William Lawrence Bragg. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8.Jenkin, John. 2008. William and Lawrence Bragg, father and son, the most extraordinary collaboration in science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9.Phillips, David C. 1979. William Lawrence Bragg. 31 March 1890–1 July 1971. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 25: 74–126.
10.Thomas, John Meurig, and David C. Phillips, eds. 1990. Selections and reflections: the legacy of Sir Lawrence Bragg. Northwood: Science Reviews Ltd, for The Royal Institution of Great Britain.