Compton, Arthur Holly 1892-1962
US physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Born in Wooster, Ohio, he studied at Princeton University and Cambridge, and held posts at Washington University in St Louis, and at Chicago University. He developed a theory to describe the interaction of X-rays with matter, based on Einstein's idea that light consists of particles, or photons. He confirmed the theory by measuring the wavelength of X-rays scattered by a target. For this important test of the particle nature of light, he shared the 1927 Nobel Prize for physics with Charles Wilson. A leading authority on nuclear energy, X-rays and nuclear chemistry, he was invited in 1941 to direct plutonium production for the atomic bomb. He was involved in the Manhattan Project and built the first reactor with Enrico Fermi in Chicago (1942).

Bibliography: Marjorie Johnston (ed), The Cosmos of Arthur Holly Compton (1968)