Nobel Prize in Physics Recipient. Charles Thomson Rees Wilson received notoriety after being awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics. He received the coveted award, according to the Nobel Prize committee, "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapor." He shared jointly the Nobel Prize with American physicist, Arthur Holly Compton. He received ten nomination for the Nobel candidacy. At the Nobel Prize presentation banquet on December 10, 1927, he gave a humble appreciation speech. Born the youngest of eight children, his father was a sheep farmer, on land that had been used by his ancestors for generations. His mother was his father’s second wife as well as a second cousin. When he was four years old, his father died. The widowed mother took her children and stepchildren to Manchester, England to be near her parents. His older brother worked to pay for his private education in Greeheyes Collegiate School, before entering Owen’s College, which is today the University of Manchester. His major was biology with the goal of becoming a physician. After receiving a scholarship in 1888, he transferred to Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge . At this point, he changed his major to physics and chemistry, earning his degree in physics in 1892. After graduation, he taught school for a brief time before returning to the laboratory. It was during these years when X-rays and radio-activity were discovered and he could not help being interested in ions. In 1893 he became interest in meteorology. After seeing the rings around clouds, he decided to mimic this natural phenomenon on a smaller scale in the Cavendish Laboratory in early 1895. He later experimented with the creation of cloud trails in his chamber by condensation onto ions generated by radioactivity with several of his cloud chambers surviving. Compton used Wilson’s “cloud chamber” in his research to assist in detecting, tracking, and identifying Xray particles. These two men lived such different lives with one making the atom bomb and the other studying thunderclouds. This cloud chamber accomplishment would give Wilson the Nobel Prize. Although with his stuttering, he gave poor lectures, yet he was appointed Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, and University Lecturer and Demonstrator in 1900. He published numerous papers on meteorology and physics, such as Xray and thundercloud formations, but the bulk of his work was in the field of meteorology. In 1925, he became the Jacksonian Professor at the Cavendish, remaining there for the rest of his career. He retired to Edinburgh where he became friendly with fellow Nobel Prize recipient, Max Born, who was a neighbor on the same street. Later, he went to live in the small village of Carlops, close to his birthplace. After publishing a paper on atmospheric electricity age 87, he became the oldest FRS to publish a paper in the “Proceedings of the Royal Society,” the society's journal. The Wilson Condensation Cloud formations that occur after large explosions, such as a nuclear blast, was named in honor of him. He married and the couple had one son and two daughters. He died at home in Carlops, and according to the Royal Society’s documents, was buried there with his ancestors.