University of Adelaide In 1885, Bragg was appointed Elder Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the
University of Adelaide in Australia, and started work there in early 1886. Being a skilled mathematician, at that time he had limited knowledge of physics, most of which was in the form of applied mathematics he had learnt at Trinity College. Also at that time, there were only about a hundred students doing full courses at Adelaide, of whom less than a handful belonged to the science school, whose deficient teaching facilities he improved by apprenticing himself to a firm of instrument makers. He was an able and popular lecturer; he encouraged the formation of the student union, and the attendance, free of charge, of science teachers at his lectures. At the University, the tube was attached to an induction coil and a battery borrowed from Sir
Charles Todd, Bragg's father-in-law. The
induction coil was utilised to produce the
electric spark necessary for Bragg and Barbour to "generate short bursts of X-rays". The audience was favorably impressed. He availed himself as a test subject, in the manner of Röntgen and allowed an X-ray photograph to be taken of his hand. The image of the fingers in his hand revealed "an old injury to one of his fingers sustained when using the turnip chopping machine on his father's farm in
Cumbria". As early as 1895, Bragg was working on
wireless telegraphy, though public lectures and demonstrations focussed on his X-ray research which would later lead to his Nobel Prize. In a hurried visit by Rutherford, he was reported as working on a Hertzian oscillator. There were many common practical threads to the two technologies and he was ably assisted in the laboratory by Arthur Lionel Rogers who manufactured much of the equipment. On 21 September 1897 Bragg gave the first recorded public demonstration of the working of wireless telegraphy in Australia during a lecture meeting at the University of Adelaide as part of the Public Teachers' Union conference. Bragg departed Adelaide in December 1897, and spent all of 1898 on a 12-month leave of absence, touring Great Britain and Europe and during this time visited Marconi and inspected his wireless facilities. He returned to Adelaide in early March 1899, and already on 13 May 1899, Bragg and his father-in-law, Sir Charles Todd, were conducting preliminary tests of wireless telegraphy with a transmitter at the Observatory and a receiver on the South Road (about 200 metres). Experiments continued throughout the southern winter of 1899 and the range was progressively extended to Henley Beach. In September the work was extended to two way transmissions with the addition of a second induction coil loaned by Mr. Oddie of Ballarat. It was desired to extend the experiments cross a sea path and Todd was interested in connecting Cape Spencer and Althorpe Island, but local costs were considered prohibitive while the charges for patented equipment from the
Marconi Company were exorbitant. At the same time Bragg's interests were leaning towards X-rays and practical work in wireless in South Australia was largely dormant for the next decade. The turning-point in Bragg's career came in 1904 when he gave the presidential address to section A of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in
Dunedin, New Zealand, There is a bust of Bragg in
North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia.
University of Leeds , University of Leeds. From 1909 to 1915, Bragg was Cavendish Professor of Physics at the
University of Leeds. He continued his work on X-rays with much success. He invented the
X-ray spectrometer and with his son,
Lawrence, then a research student at Cambridge, founded the new science of
X-ray crystallography, the analysis of crystal structure using
X-ray diffraction.
World War I Both of his sons, Lawrence and Robert, were called into the army after the
First World War broke out in 1914 . The following year, Bragg was appointed
Quain Professor of Physics at
University College London. This institution was practically rebuilt in 1929–1930 and, under Bragg's directorship, many valuable papers were issued from the laboratory.
Royal Society and World War II In 1935, Bragg was elected
President of the Royal Society. The physiologist
A. V. Hill was biological secretary and soon A. C. G. Egerton became physical secretary. During World War I, all three had stood by for frustrating months before their skills were employed for the war effort. Now the cause of science was strengthened by the report of a high-level Army committee on lessons learned in the last war; their first recommendation was to "keep abreast of modern scientific developments". Anticipating another war, the Ministry of Labour was persuaded to accept Hill as a consultant on scientific manpower. The Royal Society compiled a register of qualified men. They proposed a small committee on science to advise the Committee on Imperial Defence, but this was rejected. Finally in 1940, as his term ended, a scientific advisory committee to the War Cabinet was appointed. He was among the 2,300 names of prominent persons listed on the Nazis'
Black Book, of those who were to be arrested on the invasion of Great Britain and turned over to the
Gestapo. == Personal life and death ==