The Scottish physicist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869-1959) was the inventor and developer of the Wilson cloud chamber.

Charles Wilson was born on Feb. 14, 1869, in Glencorse near Edinburgh. He received his first undergraduate training at Owens College, now part of the University of Manchester, and from there, at the age of 19, he went to Cambridge University with the realization that physics and not medicine was to be his life's vocation.

As Wilson himself disclosed it, two experiences determined the direction and ultimate fortunes of his interest in physics. One was his few weeks' stay in 1894 at the observatory on the top of Ben Nevis, the highest Scottish mountain. The magnificent optical phenomena observable in the interplay of sunshine, mist, and clouds "greatly excited my interest and made me wish to imitate them in the laboratory." The other experience consisted in his being exposed to an electric storm on...