He is known for his research on cosmic rays: Who is Patrick Blackett?

(1897-1974) British physicist. He is known for his research on cosmic rays using fog chamber photographs and played an important role in the development of operations research. He was born on 16 November 1897 in London. One of the most important scientists of the 20th century, Blackett was first trained as a naval officer. At the age of 13, he graduated from Dartmouth Military High School and entered Osborne Naval Academy, but his education was interrupted in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I. He participated in the naval battles of the Falkland Islands and Jutland. After the war, he was sent to Cambridge University along with other officers whose education was incomplete. He left the military in 1919 and chose to study physics. After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1921, he joined Lord Rutherford in the same year and started his scientific life at the Cavendish Laboratory.

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett (18 November 1897 – 13 July 1974) was a British experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism, winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. In 1925 he became the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another.

The first problem Rutherford gave Blackett was to study the breakdown of the nitrogen core by fast alpha particles with the smoke chamber technique. By 1924, he was able to capture about half a million photographs and capture the transmutation event in eight of them. He studied with Franck at the University of Göttingen in 1924-1925, then returned to Cambridge. In 1932, Wilson, together with the Italian physicist Occhialini, developed an automatic device that combined the techniques of the fog chamber and random counting, enabling them to take pictures of cosmic rays themselves.

Blackett was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1933. In the same year, he was appointed to the University of London as a professor of physics, and in 1937 to the University of Manchester, where he was appointed Langworthy professor, vacated by Bragg, where he soon established an important center for cosmic rays research.

Beginning in 1935, he was closely concerned with the problem of defending his country against air attacks; He contributed to the development of radar for this purpose. Blackett's influence as a scientific adviser waned for a time after Churchill's rise to power, but upon the outbreak of World War II, he was brought to the helm of more and more important projects. He worked as a scientific advisor to the Anti-Aircraft Defense Command at the beginning of 1940, and by joining the Operations Research Group established in the Coastal Defense Command in 1941, he studied the war against German submarines, and the defense of heavy bombers and convoys.

When Blackett was elected to the Maud committee, which was established in the summer of 1940 for the development of atomic weapons, he did not support the view that Britain should develop the atomic bomb alone and adopted the view of cooperation with the USA. When he was elected to the Atomic Energy Advisory Commission in August 1945, he defended the views of limiting atomic weapons and putting them under international control. For this purpose, his book Political Consequences of Atomic Energy, which he published in 1948, was met with reaction in both England and the USA; He was suspended from government consultancy for 16 years, on the grounds that his views were close to those of the Soviets, and he was not allowed to enter the United States for a while.

When he returned to his post at Manchester University in the summer of 1945, he established a strong research group. This group searched for new particles in cosmic rays using fog chambers controlled by counters. Beginning in 1947, he was also interested in radio astronomy and the magnetic field between stars. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1948 for developing the fog chamber method and his discoveries in cosmic rays and nuclear physics with this method. Blackett has also been awarded Royal, Copley, and U.S. Merit Medals, as well as various awards and more than twenty doctorate honors.

In 1953 he was appointed professor of physics at Imperial College, London. Although he retired from this position in 1965, he continued his academic studies as Emeritus Professor and research manager until his death. In 1947, at the call of Nehru, he assumed the scientific advisor of India and visited this country frequently for the next 20 years. He died on 13 July 1974 in London.

Blackett has important contributions both scientifically and politically. His two most important contributions to the scientific field are his studies of finding new particles by examining cosmic rays through the fog chamber, which are two completely different subjects, and his efforts to develop operations research. In addition to these, he contributed to some technological developments, especially radar, and conducted studies on geomagnetism.

Cosmic rays come to Earth from space; The results of the events with the highest energy in the universe are examined with the help of these rays. Blackett and his colleagues developed a new method for photographing only essential events in the fog chamber, which they used to study cosmic rays. For this purpose, photographs were taken when Geiger-Müller (or glow) counters, which they placed around the fog chamber, detected cosmic ray particles and signaled together. In a sense, this random counting technique, which enables the particles to "expose" themselves, has been successfully applied in various experiments. Thus, unless there is an important event, the loss of time for taking photos and examining these photos is prevented. Both this technique and the search for new particles in cosmic rays, which is perhaps the cheapest and most high-energy (but somewhat capricious) laboratory available, is an important innovation. As a matter of fact, two very important discoveries made by Blackett in this way were the discovery of the existence of new particles in cosmic rays by the experimental creation and destruction of the electron-positron pair.

Blackett's views on the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, limiting atomic weapons and keeping them under international control, and that the problems of developing countries could be solved by cheap technology transfer were initially met with backlash. Still, in the long run, these views were accepted as the result of careful and strategic analysis. Blackett has served with all his might for the use of science and technology to serve humanity in the best way, therefore, he has not refrained from fighting and using his effectiveness, taking the risk of being in the minority and being met with reaction when necessary.