A Nobel Prize for a Blackett

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), later Lord Blackett, became a world famous physicist, and the author of a number of scholarly books. He was the son of a London stockbroker and was a great-nephew of Edmund Thomas Blacket (see Architecture).
After distinguished service in the Royal Navy in World War I, he went on to obtain a Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge. He worked as an experimental physicist in the laboratory of Professor Rutherford, and in 1933 made his most spectacular achievement when he discovered the positive electron. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. Before World War II he was the leading member of the Committee for the Study of Air Defence, the first Operations Research team in the world. It became known as “Blackett’s Circus”. He did important work in cosmic ray research and rock magnetism, and from 1942 to 1945 he was Director of Operational Research with the British Admiralty. He was made President of The Royal Society in 1965, and was created Baron Blackett of Chelsea in 1969. There is a Blackett Memorial Hall at Manchester University, and a Blackett wing at Imperial College, London. Blackett Crater on the moon (see A Lunar Blackett) is named after him.