Nobel Prize Recipient. Sir Edward Victor Appleton, a British space physicist, received world-wide recognition after receiving the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physics for, according to the Nobel Prize committee, "his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton Layer." The Appleton Layer is a dependable reflector of radio waves and as such is useful in communication. Other ionospheric layers reflect radio waves sporadically, depending upon temperature and time of day. In 1927 he demonstrated that an additional layer existed outside the one discovered previously. This was the pioneer work needed for the task of inventing radar. Well-known in the scientific community, he received 15 nominations for the Nobel candidacy with several being from prior Nobel Prize in Physics recipients. With the beginning of his education in local schools, he received a scholarship, earning with full honors a B.A. degree in Natural Science at St. John's College at Cambridge in 1913. The next year, he earned a degree in physics. After receiving a Wilthishire Prize in 1913 and the Hutchinson Research Studentship in 1914, he began to study with Nobel Prize in Physics recipients Sir J.J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford. During World War I, he served in the British Army in the Duke of Wellington's Regiment and later became a captain in the Signals Branch of the Corps of the Royal Engineers. At the end of the war, he returned to Cambridge, resuming his research on scientific problems in atmospheric physics, using mainly radio techniques. In 1920 he was appointed assistant demonstrator in experimental physics at the Cavendish Laboratory. Two years later he became sub-rector at Trinity College. From 1924 to 1936, he was a professor of Physics at King's College in London. From 1936 to 1939, he was a professor of natural philosophy at University of Cambridge. From 1939 to 1949, he was the secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. From 1949 until his death in 1965, he was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburg. He was made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1941 and a Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire in 1946. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the War Cabinet which, in 1941 during World War II, advised the Government that the manufacture of an atomic bomb was achievable. In 1943, he traveled to the United States and Canada to arrange details of collaboration between American and British scientists. As the results of Appleton's find, a system of forecasts has been established, in which more than 40 stations in co-operation world-wide, enabling the production of the most suitable wavelengths for communication over any particular radio circuit. He was elected as a member of numerous scientific groups including in 1927 a fellow of the Royal Society, receiving the society's Hughes Medal in 1933 and the Royal Medal in 1950, and in 1936 Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1947 he received from the British Physics Institute the fourth-ever-awarded Chree Medal, and later the name of this prestigious award was changed to The Edward Appleton Medal and Prize. Besides the Nobel Prize, he received the highest civilian decoration of the United States, the Medal of Merit; was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honour; awarded the Norwegian Cross of Freedom for his war work; received the Albert Medal of the Royal Society of Arts in 1950, for outstanding services to science and industrial research; the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1960; the Faraday Medal in 1946; and the Medal of Honor of the Institute of Radio Engineers of America in 1962. Appleton's work has been recognized by India, Norway and Denmark, and in 1948 he was appointed by the Pope to the Pontifical Academy of Science. Besides the Appleton Layer, there are a host of facilities carrying his name in honor of him including a moon crater and several educational buildings. In 1956 he presented six radio programs for the Reith Lectures of the B.B.C. on "Science and the Nation". He authored at least 140 scientific papers on all aspects of the ionosphere, and died suddenly as he was writing one. Until his death, he served as the editor of the professional periodical, the "Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial." He married in 1915 and the couple had two daughters.
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Cenotaph memorial at Scholemoor Cemetery, Bradford, England