William Henry Bragg (1862–1942) was a British physicist and inventor known for his contributions to the field of X-ray crystallography. He, along with his son William Lawrence Bragg, developed Bragg's law, which describes the relationship between the wavelength of X-rays and the crystal structure of materials. This work laid the foundation for determining the atomic structure of crystals.
Articles by others on the same topic
William Henry Bragg developed experimental methods that turned crystal diffraction into X-ray spectroscopy. A crystal selects reflected radiation at particular angles, while a movable detector measures the reflected intensity. Relating these peaks to lattice-plane spacing connects an instrument reading with the wavelength of the incident radiation. His joint work with Lawrence Bragg established a quantitative relation between crystal geometry and X-ray reflection, helping make diffraction a practical probe of both radiation and structure.[ref]
The Reflection of X-rays by Crystals by William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg. Proceedings of the Royal Society A 88, 428–438 (1913), reflection measurements and crystal geometry
Portrait of William Henry Bragg
. Nobel Foundation; portrait dated 1915, published in Sweden in Les Prix Nobel 1915 (1916), page 101; individual photographer unspecified. Commons PD-Sweden-photo: Swedish public-domain status under its simple-photograph or anonymous-photograph provisions., via Wikimedia Commons. Source.