William Lawrence Bragg was born on March 31, 1890, in Adelaide, South Australia andwas the first of three children. Five years later, Germany had stumbled upon the newphenomenon of x-rays, which would have a major impact on Bragg’s life later on.
At nine yearsold, Lawrence enrolled in Queens School, excelling in mathematics, chemistry, and physics.During the year of 1901, Bragg started high school at Saint Peter’s College, Adelaide, where hestudied mathematics and chemistry and where physics were nonexistent. Because Lawrence wasso far ahead of his peers, he completed high school at the age of fifteen. Also in Lawrence’syouth, he used to collect seashells on South Australia’s beaches, and collected a notable amount.At the age of sixteen, while studying at university, he continued to search for seashells, andfound a cuttlefish bone that he was unable to identify, taking it to Dr. Joseph Verco, an expert onmollusk shells.
It turns out that Bragg had found a new species of cuttlefish that was then namedSepia braggi in his honor. When he was eighteen years of age, Bragg graduated from collegewith a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. One year later, Bragg began to study for a mathematicsdegree at the University of Cambridge and while at school, he listened to his father’s advice anddecided to major in physics rather than mathematics. In 1921, at the age of twenty-one, Bragggraduated with a first class honors degree in physics.When he completed his degree, Bragg became a student at JJ Thomson’s lab inCambridge. Then, in 1912, he made an incredible discovery, which later became known asBragg’s Law of X-ray Diffraction. Earlier that same year, Max von Laue of Munich haddiscovered that x-rays can be diffracted by crystals, and were therefore waves. Many scientists,including Bragg’s father, disagreed with this.
Lawrence Bragg looked over Laue’s works andconcluded that Laue had misunderstood the x-ray’s properties and the arrangement of atoms incrystals.The research and discoveries of Lawrence Bragg are still relevant in this day and agebecause x-ray crystallography is still used today to determine molecular structures, and the basicconcept still remains the same than what it was during Lawrence Bragg’s time. The challenges ofworking with other scientists, however, were that Bragg had to deal with the criticism of hisfellow scientists and prove to them that his work was correct and reliable. Some advantages ofworking with other scientists was that Bragg was able to learn from his colleague Laue’s workand realize his mistake, which led to Lawrence Bragg making one of the most crucialbreakthroughs in the history of science.In my opinion, there are many benefits and disadvantages of working with colleagues.
Some advantages of collaborating with peers are finding out new ideas and being able to havemore than one perspective on the discussed topic. Several challenges, however, of working withpeers or colleagues are that they might try to supply you with the wrong information or steal thedata collected and claim it as their own and not yours. Finally, competition may slow oraccelerate scientific progress in several ways. Competition may hinder scientific progressbecause it may distract the scientist from small, overlooked details and may cause them to rushor forget crucial parts. Having competition might accelerate scientific discoveries byencouraging the scientist to work faster than his competitor and have the motivation to do thebest that they are able to, which could lead to another scientific breakthrough.Sources:
