Cavendish LaboratoryIn 1874, the Cavendish Laboratory was opened at the University of Cambridge, England. It was built as a teaching laboratory with a regular course of instruction - a new idea for the time. Until then, much of experimental physics was conducted as individual work in essentially private laboratories. Joule and Cavendish, for example, set up their facilities in their own home, at their own expense. An early exception was the laboratory at the University of Glasgow established in the 1840's by William Thompson (later Lord Kelvin). The first Cavendish Professor (1871-1879) was James Clerk-Maxwell, followed by Lord Rayleigh (1879-1884), who both much expanded knowledge of physics. The third Cavendish Professor was J.J. Thomson, discoverer of the electron.«* |
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