Vote Bragg!
Back the invention of X-ray crystallography by William Henry Bragg, Professor of Physics at Leeds, and his son, in an online poll being run by the Science Museum and The Royal Society.
The poll is asking the public to vote for the greatest British innovations of the 20th century. X-ray crystallography, which was developed at Leeds, revolutionised modern science, leading directly to more than 20 Nobel prizes and fundamental discoveries.
William Henry Bragg, Cavendish Professor of Physics at Leeds, and his son William Lawrence Bragg were able, using the world’s first X-ray spectrometers, to plot how the atoms in crystallized matter were arranged. Their technique allowed scientists to peer into the structure of materials in unprecedented detail and had huge implications for the development of science and industry over the next century.
The Braggs were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915, and a series of subsequent Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry and medicine, including Watson and Crick’s momentous work on the structure of DNA, used techniques derived from the science they pioneered.
X-ray crystallography continues to be a cutting-edge technique across a wide range of scientific disciplines and is in everyday use in industry. The medical ultrasound devices that let you see your baby in the womb, the sonar on a submarine, and the fuel injectors in cars all use materials developed using X-ray crystallography.
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Voting closes on Monday 25 March.