Blackett, Patrick Maynard Stuart (1897–1974)
English physicist who was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in
Physics for his research on cosmic rays.
He spent 10 years at the Cavendish
Laboratory, Cambridge, developing the Wilson cloud
chamber into an instrument with which to study this radiation. He also
used it to prove the existence of the positron
(the antiparticle of the electron). Blackett was professor of physics at
Manchester Univeristy (1937–53) and then professor of physics at Imperial
College, London (1953–65).