Catalogue description Supplementary catalogue of the papers of FREDERICK ALEXANDER LINDEMANN VISCOUNT CHERWELL OF OXFORD (1886 - 1957)

DESCRIPTION OF THE MATERIAL

The papers came to light in July 1982, some time after the completion of the cataloguing of the main Cherwell manuscript collection. It is possible that since they are wholly related to Cherwell's early career as a physicist they had been overlooked by those whose interest lay in his later political activities.

For precisely the same reason, however, the material is a useful addition, dating as it does mainly from the years which Cherwell spent in Nernst's laboratory (c.1910 - 14). It is almost all autograph manuscript, in German, and deals with research on specific heat, early quantum theory and the movement of electrons in atoms. Items 16 and 20 refer to later work on astronomical problems; items 19 and 21 are Farnborough reports on aeronautical topics. Very few of the manuscripts are dated, and the chronological order of presentation is no more than approximate.

Of some interest is item 8, notes taken of contributions to discussions at conference, probably the Second Solvay Conference of 1913, when X-ray spectroscopy and its impact on atomic theory were a principal topic.

As with the compilation of the main Cherwell catalogue, use has been made of the biographical memoir by G.P. Thomson (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 4, 1958) and of the official biography by Birkenhead, The Prof. in two worlds (Collins, 1961). When a link with material in the main catalogue could be reasonably established this is indicated in the entries.

Compiled by Jeannine Alton and Peter Harper

The work of the Contemporary Scientific Archives Centre, and the production of this catalogue, are made possible by the support of the following societies and institutions:

The Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland

The Biochemical Society

The British Pharmacological Society

The Charles Babbage Foundation for the History of Information Processing

The Institute of Physics

The Institution of Electrical Engineers

The Nuffield Foundation

The Physiological Society

The Royal Society of London

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to Dr. G. Sweet for help in deciphering German script, and to Dr. J.H. Hendry for suggesting dates for some of the documents.

PATENTS AND INVENTIONS, 1-4

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS 5-21

SHORTER NOTES 22-24

Material additional to the main catalogue CSAC 80/4/81

Lindemann, Frederick Alexander, 1st Viscount Cherwell, 1886-1957, scientist and physicist

Deposited in 1984

• Nuclear physics

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