Who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935?

By the 1930s some aspects of the structure of the atom were beginning to be understood. For example, it was known that, within the atom, there were particles carrying a positive electrical charge (protons) and particles carrying a negative electrical charge (electrons). In 1932 it was definitively established by the English physicist, Sir James Chadwick (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974), that there were also particles carrying no charge. These particles ("neutrons") were crucial to the nuclear and chemical behaviour of the atom. This discovery had huge consequences: it led the way towards the fission of uranium 235 and towards the creation of the atomic bomb. Chadwick was awarded the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society in 1932 and the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1935

Chadwick was one of the original members of the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Warfare, usually known as the MAUD Committee. This group was formed during the Second World War to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. [The name MAUD came from a telegram from the Nobel Prizewinner Professor Niels Bohr referring to his housekeeper, Maud Ray.]

In 1941, Chadwick wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspired the U.S. government to begin serious atomic bomb research efforts. He was the head of the British team that worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. He was knighted in England in 1945 for his achievements in physics.