As beautifully put in The Eighth Day of Creation:
For more than a hundred years, the Cavendish Professorship has been the chair of experimental physics in the University of Cambridge. The man in that chair rules the university's research in physics. Indeed, for most of that hundred years the Cavendish Professor was preeminent in British science, with an authority that made him, as it were, the archbishop of physics
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Cavendish Laboratory is a renowned physics research laboratory located at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1871, it is one of the leading centers for experimental physics in the world. The laboratory is named after the scientist Henry Cavendish, who made significant contributions to the field of physics, particularly in the study of gases and electricity.