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SUMMARY:Special Cavendish Physical Society Lecture : Making Experimental P
 hysics Bite: James Clerk Maxwell and the founding of the Cavendish Laborat
 ory - Dr. Isobel Falconer \, Honorary Reader in the History of Mathematics
 \, St Andrews University
DTSTART:20140129T160000Z
DTEND:20140129T170000Z
UID:TALK49987@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Leona Hope-Coles
DESCRIPTION:*Synopsis*\n “... it will need a good deal of effort to make
  Exp. Physics bite into our University system which is so continuous and c
 omplete without it...” wrote James Clerk Maxwell on taking up his appoin
 tment as the first Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. This ta
 lk examines how Maxwell approached the challenge\, establishing the Cavend
 ish Laboratory and defining the place of experimental physics. It consider
 s fresh evidence and situates Maxwell’s approaches to physics and teachi
 ng within the context of his time.\n\n*Isobel Falconer* is the leading aut
 hority on the early history of the Cavendish Laboratory.  Her book with Pr
 ofessor E.A. Davis _J.J. Thomson and the Discovery of the Electron_ (1997)
  is the authoritative discussion of what Thomson and his colleagues actual
 ly did.  In 1989 she contributed a chapter _JJ Thomson and 'Cavendish' Phy
 sics_ to the volume _The Development of the Laboratory_.   She has written
  the biographies of numerous Cavendish physicists for the _Oxford Dictiona
 ry of National Biography_\, including major essays on Barkla\, Campbell\, 
 Chadwick\, Larmor\, Mott\, Raman and JJ Thomson. Recently she has been hel
 ping Lord Rayleigh with the scoping of his archive collection. She was res
 ponsible for the cataloguing and setting up of the permanent exhibition of
  historic apparatus in the Cavendish museum\, as well as writing the Outli
 ne Guide to the Museum.  Her chapter in the forthcoming book _James Clerk 
 Maxwell_ (OUP 2014) is entitled ‘Building the Cavendish and time at Camb
 ridge’.  \nThere will be on display in the lecture a number of Maxwell
 ’s original pieces of apparatus and some of these will be used in live d
 emonstrations. \nThere will be a wine and canapé reception after the lect
 ure.\nAll are most warmly invited to this special lecture.\n
LOCATION:Cavendish Laboratory\, Pippard Lecture Theatre\,
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