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SUMMARY:Special CPS lecture : MAKING EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS BITE:  JAMES CLE
 RK MAXWELL AND THE FOUNDING OF THE CAVENDISH LABORATORY - Dr. Isobel Falco
 ner\, Honorary Reader in the History of Mathematics\, St Andrews Universit
 y
DTSTART:20140129T160000Z
DTEND:20140129T170000Z
UID:TALK49993@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Leona Hope-Coles
DESCRIPTION:_Synopsis:_  “... 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' Phys
 ics to the volume *The Development of the Laboratory*.   She has written t
 he biographies of numerous Cavendish physicists for the *Oxford Dictionary
  of National Biography*\, including major essays on Barkla\, Campbell\, Ch
 adwick\, Larmor\, Mott\, Raman and JJ Thomson. Recently she has been helpi
 ng Lord Rayleigh with the scoping of his archive collection. She was respo
 nsible for the cataloguing and setting up of the permanent exhibition of h
 istoric apparatus in the Cavendish museum\, as well as writing the Outline
  Guide to the Museum.  Her chapter in the forthcoming book *James Clerk Ma
 xwell* (OUP 2014) is entitled “Building the Cavendish and time at Cambri
 dge’. There will be on display in the lecture a number of Maxwell’s or
 iginal pieces of apparatus and some of these will be used in live demonstr
 ations. \n
LOCATION:Pippard Lecture Theatre\, Cavendish Laboratory
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