John William Nicholson

John William Nicholson
Nicholson second from left in the automobile, 1913
Born(1881-11-01)1 November 1881
Darlington, County Durham, England
Died3 October 1955(1955-10-03) (aged 73)
NationalityGreat Britain
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMathematician

John William Nicholson, FRS[1] (1 November 1881 – 3 October 1955) was an English mathematician and physicist. Nicholson is noted as the first to create an atomic model that quantized angular momentum as h/2π.[2][3] Nicholson was also the first to create a nuclear and quantum theory that explains spectral line radiation as electrons descend toward the nucleus, identifying hitherto unknown solar and nebular spectral lines.[4][5] Niels Bohr quoted him in his 1913 paper of the Bohr model of the atom.[6]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference frs was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^
    • Nicholson, J. W. (1911a). "The spectrum of Nebulium". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 72: 49. Bibcode:1911MNRAS..72...49N. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.1.49.
    • Nicholson, J. W. (1911b). "The Constitution of the Solar Corona I". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 72: 139. Bibcode:1911MNRAS..72..139N. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.2.139.
    • Nicholson, J. W. (1912a). "The Constitution of the Solar Corona II". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 72 (8): 677–693. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.8.677.
    • Nicholson, J. W. (1912b). "The Constitution of the Solar Corona III". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 72 (9): 729–740. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.9.729.
    • Nicholson, J. W. (1912c). "On the new nebular line at λ4353". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 72 (8): 693. Bibcode:1912MNRAS..72..693N. doi:10.1093/mnras/72.8.693.
  3. ^ McCormmach, Russell (1966). "The Atomic Theory of John William Nicholson". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 3 (2): 160–184. doi:10.1007/BF00357268. JSTOR 41133258. S2CID 120797894.
  4. ^ Heilbron, John L. (2013). "The path to the quantum atom". Nature. 498 (7452): 27–30. doi:10.1038/498027a. PMID 23739408. S2CID 4355108.
  5. ^ Nicholson 1912a, Nicholson 1912b
  6. ^ Bohr, N. (1913). "On the constitution of atoms and molecules". The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 6th series. 26 (151): 1–25. Bibcode:1913PMag...26..476B. doi:10.1080/14786441308634955.