Vol. 2: 1870-1907

by Robin Marshall

In 1911, Manchester became the central powerhouse of physics on the planet, with the discovery of the atomic nucleus. It took over 200 years from when a University was first mooted for Manchester in 1641, until a college of University stature was founded in 1851. This volume covers the story from 1870 to 1907, during which period Balfour Stewart and Arthur Schuster put Manchester physics on the world map. Balfour Stewart’s letter book provides a unique glimpse into the workings of a Victorian physics department and its relationship with the entrepreneurial instrument makers, many of whose small companies went on to become global enterprises. Stewart’s teaching laboratory log-book reveals the first stumbling steps of student J J Thomson. Owens College became part of a new federal university in 1880 and then in 1900, through the almost single handed efforts of Arthur Schuster, the largest physical laboratories in the country were opened. The first lectureship in meteorology was created in the physics department, where not just the stratosphere, but the clear transition from the troposphere to the stratosphere was unambiguously established via balloon flights from the top of the new physics building in 1907. The volume ends with the Jubilee Fest for Arthur Schuster and his retirement in favour of Ernest Rutherford. Meanwhile, outside the confines of Owens College and the eventual University, the irascible Henry Wilde invented the dynamo and frustrated his friends.

228 pages, Paperback

Published February 22, 2018