The Early History of the Cavendish Laboratory

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• Malcolm Longair, Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy Emeritus, Cavendish Laboratory
• Wednesday 15 October 2014, 16:00-17:00
• Pippard Lecture Theatre, Cavendish Laboratory.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Leona Hope-Coles.

Physics was introduced rather late into the syllabus of the Natural Sciences Tripos in Cambridge. In this lecture, the extraordinary events which led to the opening of the Laboratory in 1874 will be described. Maxwell, the first Cavendish Professor faced the challenge of creating a world-class laboratory starting from essentially zero. How he and his successors achieved this remarkably rapidly will be described. It will be argued that the Laboratory has followed the agenda set out by Maxwell in his inaugural address of 1871. The challenges have a resonance with how the present programme of the Laboratory is carried out and the challenge involved addressed. The lecture will be delivered at a non-technical level and will be profusely illustrated.

This talk is part of the Cavendish Physical Society series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Cavendish Laboratory Seminars
• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cavendish Physical Society
• Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise
• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity
• Featured lists
• Hanchen DaDaDash
• Inference Group Summary
• ME Seminar
• NanoDTC Energy Materials Talks
• NanoDTC Talks
• Neurons, Fake News, DNA and your iPhone: The Mathematics of Information
• Pippard Lecture Theatre, Cavendish Laboratory
• School of Physical Sciences
• Thin Film Magnetic Talks

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.