Article (interview)- 20 pages (approximately)
- Level: all audiences
Sir William Henry Bragg and his son, William Lawrence Bragg, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 for on “their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays”. The senior Bragg is often quoted as stating: “Some people say that religion and science are opposed; so they are, but only in the same sense as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed—and between the two one can grasp everything.”
In a June 20, 1969 interview with David Edge, William Lawrence Bragg discussed his father and how his father had both a strong religious devotion and a hesitancy to talk about matters of religion: “In Adelaide [in Autralia] he [William Henry] was a church warden,” says William Lawrence, “and went to church constantly but I don’t think he ever talked to us about religion. I can’t remember that in any way. We weren’t rigidly brought up except we were taught that it was very very much the right thing to do to go to church.”
Click here to access this article through the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Oral Histories Archive.
Click here for information from www.nobelprize.org on the 1915 Nobel Prize and the Braggs.
