George Paget Thomson (1892-1975). Like his father, G.P. Thomson attended Trinity College, Cambridge University, and did some postgraduate work at the Cavendish. He held positions at Cambridge, Aberdeen University, and Imperial College, London. G.P. Thomson performed experiments on electron scattering through celluloids that revealed diffraction effects characteristic of wave phenomena. For this work he shared (with C.J. Davisson) the 1937 Nobel prize in physics. It has been quipped that J.J. Thomson got the Nobel prize for discovering that electrons are particles, and G.P. Thomson got it for discovering that they aren't.

AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, E. Scott Barr Collection



© 1997- American Institute of Physics