it's 1894 in the Scottish mountains a young 24-year-old by the name of Charles Thompson ree Wilson has just begun work at an observatory at the summit of the mountain named Ben Nevis the highest Summit in the United Kingdom Wilson recently fascinated by the physical sciences after attending Sydney Sussex College wants to become a meteorologist and has followed his passion to the summit studying clouds and their properties upon working at the summit Wilson becomes fascinated by a strange phenomenon rings in the clouds resembling a circular rainbow with a shadow of the observer in its middle this
phenomenon now known as a glory and Brock inspector leaves Wilson in awe he decides after seeing these glories that he wants to recreate his own in the lab little did he know however that what he was about to create would not just help him study the properties of clouds but also would end up transforming the world of physics forever Wilson got to work on a chamber that would allow him to expand moist air to observe its properties he successfully finished A Primitive model by the end of 1895 just one year after he began work at
Ben nevas and began observations the purpose of the expanding chamber was to give the volume of air a certain saturation of water vapor and then expand it adiabatically so that the expansion causes a drop in the temperature of the present air it was already well known at this time that absorption of vapors and solubility of solutions increases as the temperature of the air or solvent increases so the goal here was to create a certain absorption level of water vapor in the air and then decrease the temperature of the air so that there was more vapor
in the air than could be absorbed this effect known today as super saturation would allow for easy condensation and mist formation so that Wilson could easily study the properties of Mists and clouds upon creating these conditions with his chamber however he quickly noticed a peculiar effect the Mist created from Vapor condensing on Dust wasn't the only kind of vapor being created there were also sharp Trails of mist being created appearing very quickly every so often shooting across the chamber spanning a few cenm and then dissipating after a few seconds Wilson hypothesis for this phenomenon a
bold one at the time was that water vapor in the air was condensing on atoms passing through the chamber the reason that this hypothesis was so bold was because no forms of ionizing radiation had yet been discovered and therefore there was nothing to explain why water would condense on some nuclei rather than others let alone any nuclei at all this would quickly change however as many forms of radiation slowly came to light x-rays in 1896 Alpha and beta radiation in 1899 and gamma radiation in 1900 discoveries like these showed that air molecules could be ionized
acting as an electrical attraction for polarized molecules such as water and alcohol these discoveries offered an explanation for what made certain nuclei so special that Vapor could condense on them Wilson continued his research on ionization nuclei and these water vapor tracks from 189 95 until 1900 but his other studies and obligations caused a stunt in this research on the topic it wouldn't be until the year 1911 when he would improve his invention and dub it the cloud chamber using his Cloud chamber he successfully photographed and labeled alpha particles as well as beta particles or electrons
which he called little wisps and threads of clouds the cloud chamber would continually go through a series of modifications and in improvements until the year 1923 when he would introduce his version of the perfected Cloud chamber it was in this year that he published two papers on tracking clouds of electrons citing a technique that was almost instantly picked up by scientists around the world and led to a series of fascinating discoveries the chamber would be used to experimentally prove the Compton effect shortly after its invention Patrick blackett would later improve the chamber further and use
it to conf confirm the existence of the proton Carl David Anderson used it to demonstrate the existence of the positron blacket and OK Alini used it to visually demonstrate the concept of pair creation and annihilation of electrons and positrons so many new discoveries came from just one invention because of just how much easier it made visualizing and understanding Atomic and subatomic particles and how they interact with one another the invention was so revolutionary that Ernest Rutherford himself called it the most original and wonderful instrument in scientific history Wilson won the Nobel Prize in 1927 for
his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapor sharing his prize with Arthur Compton Wilson spent his years along with the development of his Cloud chamber lecturing but due to a stutter he tended to often receive poor reception he did however make significant contribution to the understanding of atmospheric and thunderstorm electricity simultaneously with his Cloud chamber development possibly the most astounding part of this Saga is that Wilson wasn't primarily a physicist but rather a meteorologist he made the chamber wanting to study atmospheric effects but got a much different result
out of his efforts and yet Wilson had his raw ingenious nature and a background in physical sciences that allowed him to capitalize on the strange phenomenon on he discovered despite his passion for meteorology he continued development on his device working in two Fields simultaneously and ended up contributing to the field of physics far more than even in his main field thanks to Wilson human understanding of atomic and subatomic particles has vastly increased and the visualization of such particles not only serves as an unveiling of hidden nature but also as a source of inspiration and wonder
for the hidden beauty of our universe if you enjoyed this video please consider liking and subscribing click here if you want to see more scientific progress made during this time period thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video
