Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Industrial Age

Cloud chamber — C.T.R. Wilson

1911 AD · Transmission: Global
PhysicsInventionBritish

Charles Thomson Rees Wilson develops the cloud chamber, the first instrument able to visualize subatomic particle trajectories via condensation trails in supersaturated gas. A fundamental experimental physics tool for four decades, it allowed photographing alpha particles, beta particles, and cosmic rays, remaining in use for low-energy physics and education after the bubble chamber's emergence.

InstitutionCavendish Laboratory — Cambridge
Historical regionUnited Kingdom — Cambridge
Primary sourceWilson, C.T.R. — On a method of making visible the paths of ionising particles through a gas (1911, Proceedings of the Royal Society A)
Original languageEnglish
View this entry in the interactive atlas → View in graph →