| Nobel Prize in Physics 1915 (with William Henry Bragg) "for services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays" William Lawrence Bragg, son of William Henry Bragg, is the youngest ever Nobel Laureate, an honour he was awarded at 25 years of age. He was born in Adelaide, South Australia, on March 31, 1890. He received his early education at St. Peter's College, proceeding to Adelaide University, where he graduated with a degree in mathematics with first-class honours in 1908. He came to England with his father in 1909 and entered Trinity College, Cambridge as an Allen Scholar, taking first-class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1912. In 1914, Bragg was appointed Fellow and Lecturer in Natural Sciences at Trinity College and the same year he was awarded the Barnard Medal. From 1912 to 1914 he had been working with his father, and the results of their work were published in an abridged form in X-rays and Crystal Structure (1915). Together with his father, Bragg has published various scientific papers on crystal structure after their joint publication of 1915: The Crystalline State (1934), Electricity (1936), and Atomic Structure of Minerals (1937). Soon afterwards, Lawrence decided that X-rays had a dual wave/particle nature - one of the most significant concepts in 20th century physics. He was later to work with Crick and Watson to help reveal the structure of DNA. Father and son won the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on X-ray crystallography, building on the work of von Laue, who did ground-breaking study in the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. By mathematically analysing the way that X-rays were affected when aimed at certain substances, they were able to deduce their crystal structure. Understanding the crystal structure of a substance is particularly important in helping to predict how that substance will behave under different circumstances. For instance, they found that common salt (Sodium Chloride) did not exist as individual single molecules, but in a regular lattice (crystal) structure with alternating atoms of Sodium and Chlorine. Knighted in 1941, Sir Lawrence holds the degree of M.A. (Cambridge), Honorary D.Sc. (Dublin, Leeds, Manchester, Lisbon, Paris, Brussels, Liege, and Durham), honorary Ph.D. (Cologne), and honorary LL.D. (St.Andrews). He has many honorary fellowships and is an honorary or foreign member of American, French, Swedish, Chinese, Dutch, and Belgian Scientific Academies, besides being Membre d'Honneur de la Soci?t? Fran?aise de Min?ralogies et Cristallographie. He was awarded the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1931; the Royal Medal of the same society in 1946, and the Roebling Medal of the Mineral Society of America in 1948.
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