William Francis Gray Swann and Related Topics

Ernest Lawrence

Pioneering American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron.

Diagram of cyclotron operation from Lawrence's 1934 patent

Meeting at Berkeley in 1940 concerning the planned 184 in cyclotron (seen on the blackboard): Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Alfred Lee Loomis

The 60 in cyclotron soon after completion in 1939. The key figures in its development and use are shown, standing, left to right: D. Cooksey, D. Corson, Lawrence, R. Thornton, J, Backus, W.S. Sainsbury. In the background are Luis Walter Alvarez and Edwin McMillan.

Schematic diagram of uranium isotope separation in a calutron

Giant electromagnet Alpha I racetrack for uranium enrichment at Y-12 plant, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, circa 1944–45. The calutrons Lawrence developed are located around the ring.

Lawrence (right) with Robert Oppenheimer at the 184-inch cyclotron

He completed his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1922, and his Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1923 under the supervision of William Francis Gray Swann.

Bartol Research Institute

Scientific research institution at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Delaware.

William Francis Gray Swann (1927–1959)

Martin A. Pomerantz

American physicist who served as Director of the Bartol Research Institute and who had been a leader in developing Antarctic astronomy.

Topographic map of the Pomerantz Tableland in the Usarp Mountains of Antarctica.

In 1959, Pomerantz became the second Director of the Foundation, replacing W. F. G. Swann upon the latter's retirement.

Herman Zanstra

Dutch astronomer.

While working in Delft for four years, the last two as a high school teacher, he wrote a highly theoretical and mathematical paper on relative motion which he sent to William Francis Gray Swann.

Kenneth Bainbridge

American physicist at Harvard University who did work on cyclotron research.

At the time the Franklin Institute's Bartol Research Foundation was located on the Swarthmore College campus in Pennsylvania, and was directed by W. F. G. Swann, an English physicist with an interest in nuclear physics.

Mildred Allen (physicist)

American physicist.

She began working with William Francis Gray Swann at Yale and continued work under his direction with the Bartol Research Foundation between 1927 and 1930.

List of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers

List of International Congresses of Mathematicians Plenary and Invited Speakers.

William Francis Gray Swann

Van de Graaff generator

Electrostatic generator which uses a moving belt to accumulate electric charge on a hollow metal globe on the top of an insulated column, creating very high electric potentials.

This Van de Graaff generator of the first Hungarian linear particle accelerator achieved 700 kV in 1951 and 1000 kV in 1952.

A Van de Graaff particle accelerator in a pressurized tank at Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris

Spark by the largest air-insulated Van de Graaff generator in the world at The Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts

Another more complicated belt machine was invented in 1903 by Juan Burboa A more immediate inspiration for Van de Graaff was a generator W. F. G. Swann was developing in the 1920s in which charge was transported to an electrode by falling metal balls, thus returning to the principle of the Kelvin water dropper.