View source for Lawrence Bragg

{{Short description|British X-ray crystallographer (1890–1971)}}
{{For|his father and fellow Nobel Prize winner|William Henry Bragg}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix  = [[Sir]]
| name              = Lawrence Bragg
| honorific_suffix  = {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|CH|OBE|MC|FRS|size=100%}}
| image             = Wl-bragg.jpg
| caption           = Bragg in 1915
| order             = 3rd
| title             = [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)#Directors of NPL|Director of the National Physical Laboratory]]
| term_start        = 1937
| term_end          = 1938
| predecessor       = [[Frank Edward Smith]] (acting)
| successor         = [[Charles Galton Darwin]]
| birth_name        = William Lawrence Bragg
| birth_date        = {{Birth date|1890|03|31|df=yes}}
| birth_place       = [[Adelaide]], [[Colony of South Australia]]
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1971|07|01|1890|03|31|df=yes}}
| death_place       = [[Ipswich]], [[England]], UK
| education         = {{Plain list|
* [[Queen's College, North Adelaide]]
* [[St Peter's College, Adelaide]]
}}
{{Infobox scientist
| embed             = yes
| alma_mater        = {{Plain list|
* [[University of Adelaide]]
* [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]
}}
| known_for         = [[Bragg's law]] (1913)
| title             = {{Plain list|
* [[Langworthy Professor]] <br/> (1919–37)
* [[Cavendish Professor of Physics]] (1938–53)
* [[Fullerian Professor of Chemistry]] (1953–66)
}}
| spouse            = {{Marriage|Alice Hopkinson|1921}}
| children          = 4, including [[Stephen Bragg|Stephen]]
| father            = [[William Henry Bragg]]
| relatives         = [[Charles Todd (pioneer)|Charles Todd]] (grandfather)
| awards            = {{Plain list|
* [[Matteucci Medal]] (1915)
* [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] (1915)
* [[Hughes Medal]] (1931)
* [[Knight Bachelor]] (1941)
* [[Royal Medal]] (1946)
* [[Copley Medal]] (1966)
* [[Order of the Companions of Honour]] (1967)
}}
| fields            = [[X-ray crystallography]]
| work_institutions = {{Plain list|
* Trinity College, Cambridge (1914–19)
* [[Victoria University of Manchester]] (1919–37)
* [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]] (1937–38)
* [[Cavendish Laboratory]] <br/> (1938–53)
* [[Royal Institution]] (1953–66)
}}
| academic_advisors = {{Plain list|
* [[J. J. Thomson]]<ref name=MGP>{{Cite web|title=Lawrence Bragg - The Mathematics Genealogy Project|url=https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=122657|website=genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu|access-date=2025-05-31}}</ref>
* William Henry Bragg
}}
| doctoral_students = {{Plain list|
* {{No wrap|[[Evan James Williams]] (1926)}}<ref name=NLW>{{cite web|title=National Library of Wales: From Warfare to Welfare 1939–59|url=http://myglyw.org.uk/index.php?id=4368|access-date=17 November 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151118111733/http://myglyw.org.uk/index.php?id=4368|archive-date=18 November 2015|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
* [[Max Perutz]] (1940)
* [[Alex Stokes]] (1943)<ref>{{cite news|title=Alexander Stokes|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1423280/Alexander-Stokes.html|access-date=16 January 2016|work=The Telegraph|date=28 February 2003}}</ref>
}}
| notable_students  = {{Plain list|
* [[George W. Brindley]]<ref name=PhysicsTree>{{Cite web|title=W. Lawrence Bragg - Physics Tree|url=https://academictree.org/physics/peopleinfo.php?pid=1946|website=academictree.org|access-date=2025-09-01}}</ref>
* [[Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
* [[John Crank]]<ref name=MGP/>
* [[Marcelo Damy]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
* [[Isidor Fankuchen]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
* [[Peter Hirsch (metallurgist)|Peter Hirsch]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
* [[John Kendrew]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
* [[William Houlder Zachariasen|W. H. Zachariasen]]<ref name=PhysicsTree/>
}}
}}
}}

[[File:William Lawrence Bragg.jpeg|thumb|right|Portrait of William Lawrence Bragg taken when he was around 40 years old.]]

'''Sir William Lawrence Bragg''' (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was a British [[physicist]] who shared the 1915 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] with his father, [[William Henry Bragg]], "for their services in the analysis of [[crystal structure]] by means of X-rays",<ref name="NobelBragg">{{cite web |title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1915 |publisher=Nobel Foundation |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1915/index.html |access-date=26 April 2018}}</ref> an important step in the development of [[X-ray crystallography]].<ref name="Stoddart">{{cite journal |last1=Stoddart |first1=Charlotte |title=Structural biology: How proteins got their close-up |journal=Knowable Magazine |date=1 March 2022 |doi=10.1146/knowable-022822-1|doi-access=free |url=https://knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2022/structural-biology-how-proteins-got-their-closeup |access-date=25 March 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

As of 2025, Bragg is the youngest ever [[List of Nobel laureates|Nobel laureate]] in physics, or in any science category, having received the award at the age of 25.<ref>{{cite web |title=Facts on the Nobel Prize in Physics |publisher=Nobel Foundation |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/facts/physics/ |access-date=16 January 2016}}</ref> Bragg was the director of the [[Cavendish Laboratory]], Cambridge, when [[James D. Watson]] and [[Francis Crick]] reported the discovery of the structure of DNA in February 1953.

==Education==
William Lawrence Bragg was born on 31 March 1890 in [[Adelaide]], South Australia, the son of [[William Henry Bragg]] (1862–1942),<ref>{{Cite ODNB|title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|date=23 September 2004|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30845|pages=ref:odnb/30845|editor-last=Matthew|editor-first=H. C. G.|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/30845|access-date=29 December 2019|editor2-last=Harrison|editor2-first=B.}}</ref> who was appointed Elder Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the [[University of Adelaide]] in 1885, and Gwendoline (1869–1929), daughter of [[Charles Todd (pioneer)|Charles Todd]], government astronomer of South Australia.

In 1900, Bragg enrolled at [[Queen's School, North Adelaide]], followed by five years at [[St Peter's College, Adelaide]]. He went to the University of Adelaide at the age of 16 to study mathematics, chemistry, and physics, graduating in 1908. The same year, his father accepted the Cavendish Chair of Physics at the [[University of Leeds]] and brought the family to England.

Bragg enrolled at the [[University of Cambridge]] as an undergraduate student of [[Trinity College, Cambridge]] in the autumn of 1909, receiving a major scholarship in mathematics, despite taking the exam while in bed with [[pneumonia]]. After initially excelling in mathematics, he transferred to the physics course in the later years of his studies, and graduated with [[first class honours]] in 1911. In 1914, Bragg was elected to Fellow of Trinity College (a Fellowship at a Cambridge college involves the submission and defence of a thesis).<ref name="CambPhys">{{cite web|url=http://www.cambridgephysics.org/physicists/bragg_prelim.htm|title=Cambridge Physicists - William Lawrence Bragg|work=Cambridge Physics|publisher=Cavendish Laboratory|access-date=26 April 2018}}</ref><ref>See [[Fred Hoyle]]'s remarks regarding Hutchinson in 1965 ''Galaxies, Nuclei and Quasars'' p. 38 London: Heinemann; and R. J. N. Phillips 1987, "Some Words from a Former Student", in ''Tribute to Paul Dirac'', Bristol: Adam Hilger, p. 31.</ref>

Among Bragg's other interests was [[shell collecting]]; his personal collection amounted to specimens from some 500 species; all personally collected from South Australia. He discovered a new species of [[cuttlefish]] – ''[[Sepia braggi]]'', named for him by [[Joseph Verco]].<ref>Jenkin, John ''William and Lawrence Bragg; Father and Son''. Oxford University Press 2008 {{ISBN|978 0 19 923520 9}}</ref>

==Career and research==
===X-rays and the Bragg equation===
In 1912, as a first-year research student at Cambridge, W. L. Bragg, while strolling by the river, had the insight that crystals made from parallel sheets of atoms would not diffract X-ray beams that struck their surface at most angles because X-rays deflected by collisions with atoms would be out of phase, cancelling one another out. However, when the X-ray beam struck at an angle at which the distances it passed between atomic sheets in the crystal equalled the X-ray's wavelength then those deflected would be in phase and produce a spot on a nearby film. From this insight he wrote the simple [[Bragg's law|Bragg equation]] that relates the wavelength of the X-ray and the distance between atomic sheets in a simple crystal to the angles at which an impinging X-ray beam would be reflected.

His father built an [[X-ray spectroscopy|apparatus]] in which a crystal could be rotated to precise angles while measuring the energy of reflections. This enabled father and son to measure the distances between the atomic sheets in a number of simple crystals. They calculated the spacing of the atoms from the weight of the crystal and the [[Avogadro constant]], which enabled them to measure the wavelengths of the X-rays produced by different metallic targets in the X-ray tubes. W. H. Bragg reported their results at meetings and in a paper, giving credit to "his son" (unnamed) for the equation, but not as a co-author, which gave his son "some heartaches", which he never overcame.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Van der Kloot|first1=William|title=Great Scientists wage the Great War|date=2014|publisher=Fonthill|location=Stroud|page=129}}</ref>

===Work on sound ranging===
Bragg was commissioned early in [[World War I]] in the [[Royal Horse Artillery]] as a [[second lieutenant]] of the [[Leicestershire Royal Horse Artillery|Leicestershire battery]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28879 |date=25 August 1914 |page=6702}}</ref> In 1915 he was seconded to the [[Royal Engineers]] to develop a method to localise enemy artillery from the boom of their firing.<ref name=role>{{cite Q|Q56288708}}</ref><ref>Van der Kloot 2014, pp. 129–161.</ref> On 2 September 1915 his brother was killed during the [[Gallipoli Campaign]].<ref>{{cwgc |id=680754 |name=Bragg, Robert Charles |access-date=3 September 2010}}</ref> Shortly afterwards, he and his father were awarded the [[Nobel Prize]] in Physics. He was 25 years old and remains the youngest science laureate. The problem with [[Artillery sound ranging|sound ranging]] was that the heavy guns boomed at too low a frequency to be detected by a microphone. After months of frustrating failure he and his group devised a hot wire air wave detector that solved the problem. In this work he was aided by [[Charles Galton Darwin]], [[William Sansome Tucker]], [[Harold Roper Robinson]], [[Edward Andrade]]<ref name=cottrell>{{Cite Q|Q47478326}}</ref> and Henry Harold Hemming. British sound ranging was very effective; there was a unit in every British Army and their system was adopted by the Americans when they entered the war. For his work during the war he was awarded the [[Military Cross]]<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30450 |supp=y |page=32 |date=1 January 1918 }} ''MC''</ref> and appointed [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] (OBE).<ref name=obe>{{London Gazette |issue=30576 |supp=y |page=3289 |date=15 March 1918 }} ''OBE''</ref> He was also [[mentioned in dispatches]] on 16 June 1916, 4 January 1917 and 7 July 1919.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29623 |supp=y |page=5930 |date=13 June 1916 }} ''mid''</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=29890 |supp=y |page=207 |date=2 January 1917 }} ''mid''</ref><ref>{{London Gazette |issue=31437 |supp=y |page=8523 |date=4 July 1919 }} ''mid''</ref>

Hot wire sound ranging was used in [[World War II]] during which he served as a civilian adviser.<ref>Van der Kloot 2014, pp. 207–208.</ref>

Between the wars, from 1919 to 1937, he worked at the [[Victoria University of Manchester]] as [[Langworthy Professor]] of Physics. He became the director of the [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]] in Teddington in 1937.<ref name=WGS>{{cite book|publisher=Withington Girls' School|title=Newsletter 1936–1937|date=1937}}</ref>

After World War II, Bragg returned to Cambridge, splitting the [[Cavendish Laboratory]] into research groups. He believed that "the ideal research unit is one of six to twelve scientists and a few assistants".

===University of Manchester===
[[File:Lawrence Bragg Blue Plaque Manchester.jpg|thumb|right|A [[blue plaque]] commemorating Bragg's work at the [[University of Manchester]]]]
When demobilised he returned to crystallography at Cambridge. They had agreed that father would study organic crystals, son would investigate inorganic compounds.<ref name=frs>{{cite Q|Q47478840}}</ref><ref name="NobelBragg"/> In 1919 when [[Ernest Rutherford]], a long-time family friend, moved to Cambridge, Lawrence Bragg replaced him as Langworthy Professor of Physics at the [[Victoria University of Manchester]] and was elected to membership of the [[Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society]] on 4.11.1919. He recruited an excellent faculty, including former sound rangers, but he believed that his knowledge of physics was weak and he had no classroom experience. The students, many veterans, were critical and rowdy. He was deeply shaken but with family support he pulled himself together and prevailed. He and R. W. James measured the absolute energy of reflected X-rays, which validated a formula derived by C. G. Darwin before the war.<ref name=reginald>{{cite Q|Q47477770}}</ref> Now they could determine the number of electrons in the reflecting targets, and they were able to decipher the structures of more complicated crystals like silicates. It was still difficult: requiring repeated guessing and retrying. In the late 1920s they eased the analysis by using [[Fourier transform]]s on the data.

In 1930, he became deeply disturbed while considering a job offer from [[Imperial College London]].{{citation needed|date=February 2025}} His family rallied around and he recovered his balance while they spent 1931 in Munich, where he did research.

=== National Physical Laboratory===
He became director of the [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]] in Teddington in 1937,<ref name=WGS>{{cite book|publisher=Withington Girls' School|title=Newsletter 1936–1937|date=1937}}</ref> bringing some co-workers along. However, administration and committees took much of his time away from the workbench.

===University of Cambridge ===
Rutherford died and the search committee named Lawrence Bragg as next in the line of the [[Cavendish Professor of Physics|Cavendish Professors]] who direct the [[Cavendish Laboratory]]. The Laboratory had an eminent history in atomic physics and some members were wary of a crystallographer, which Bragg surmounted by even-handed administration. He worked on improving the interpretation of diffraction patterns. In the small crystallography group was a refugee research student without a mentor: [[Max Perutz]]. He showed Bragg X-ray diffraction data from [[hemoglobin|haemoglobin]], which suggested that the structure of giant biological molecules might be deciphered. Bragg appointed Perutz as his research assistant and within a few months obtained additional support with a grant from the [[Rockefeller Foundation]]. The work was suspended during the Second World War when Perutz was interned as an [[enemy alien]] and then worked in military research.

During the war the Cavendish offered a shortened graduate course which emphasised the electronics needed for [[radar]]. Bragg worked on the structure of metals and consulted on sonar and sound ranging, for which the Tucker microphone was still used. Bragg was knighted and became Sir Lawrence in 1941. After his father died in 1942, Bragg served for six months as Scientific Liaison Officer to Canada. He also organised periodic conferences on X-ray analysis, which was widely used in [[Military science|military research]].

After the war Bragg led in the formation of the [[International Union of Crystallography]] and was elected its first president. He reorganised the Cavendish into units to reflect his conviction that "the ideal research unit is one of six to twelve scientists and a few assistants, helped by one or more first-class instrument mechanics and a workshop in which the general run of apparatus can be constructed."<ref>Phillips 1979, p. 117.</ref> Senior members of staff now had offices, telephones, and secretarial support. The scope of the department was enlarged with a new unit on radio astronomy. Bragg's own work focused on the structure of metals, using both X-rays and the [[electron microscope]]. In 1947 he persuaded the [[Medical Research Council (United Kingdom)|Medical Research Council]] (MRC) to support what he described as the "gallant attempt"<ref>Phillips 1979, p.118</ref> to determine protein structure as the [[Laboratory of Molecular Biology]], initially consisting of Perutz, [[John Kendrew]] and two assistants. Bragg worked with them and by 1960 they had resolved the structure of [[myoglobin]] to the atomic level.<ref name=ken>{{cite Q|Q55887295}}</ref> After this Bragg was less involved; their analysis of [[hemoglobin|haemoglobin]] was easier after they incorporated two mercury atoms as markers in each molecule. The first monumental triumph of the MRC was decoding the structure of DNA by [[James Watson]] and [[Francis Crick]]. Bragg announced the discovery at a [[Solvay conference]] on proteins in Belgium on 8 April 1953, though it went unreported by the press. He then gave a talk at [[Guy's Hospital Medical School]] in London on Thursday, 14 May 1953, which resulted in an article by [[Ritchie Calder]] in the ''[[News Chronicle]]'' of London on Friday, 15 May 1953, entitled "Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life". Bragg nominated Crick, Watson and [[Maurice Wilkins]] for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; Wilkins' share recognised the contribution of X-ray crystallographers at [[King's College London]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/wilkins-facts.html|title=Maurice Wilkins – Facts|work=[[Nobel Prize]]|publisher=Nobel Foundation|access-date=26 April 2018}}</ref> Among them was [[Rosalind Franklin]], whose "[[Photo 51|photograph 51]]" showed that DNA was a double [[helix]], not the triple helix that [[Linus Pauling]] had proposed. Franklin died before the prize (which only goes to living people) was awarded.

===Royal Institution===
In 1953 the Braggs moved into the elegant flat for the Resident Professor in the [[Royal Institution]] in London, the position his father had occupied when he died. In 1934 and 1961 Lawrence had delivered the [[Royal Institution Christmas Lectures|Royal Institution Christmas Lecture]] and since 1938 he had been Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Institution, delivering an annual lecture. His father's successors had weakened the Institution, so Bragg had to rebuild it. He bolstered finances by enlisting corporate sponsors, the traditional Friday Evening Discourses were followed by a dinner party for the speaker and carefully selected possible patrons, more than 120 of them each year. "Two of these Discourses in 1965 gave him particular pleasure. On 7 May, Lady Bragg, who had been a member of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce (1951–55) and was Chairman of the [[National Marriage Guidance Council]], lectured on 'Changing patterns in marriage and divorce'; and on 15 November, Bragg listened with evident pride to the Discourse on 'Oscillations and noise in jet engines' given by his engineer-son [[Stephen Bragg|Stephen]], who was then Chief Scientist at Rolls-Royce Ltd and later became Vice-Chancellor of [[Brunel University]]."<ref>Phillips 1979, p.126.</ref> He also introduced a programme of highly regarded Schools' Lectures, enlivened by the elaborate demonstrations that were a hallmark of the Institution. He gave three of these lectures on "electricity".<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.rigb.org/our-history/people/b/william-lawrence-bragg | title=William Lawrence Bragg (1890–1971)}}</ref>

He continued research in the Institution by recruiting a small group to work in the Davy-Faraday Laboratory in the basement and in the adjoining house, supported by grants he obtained. A visitor to the laboratory succeeded in inserting heavy metals into the enzyme [[lysozyme]]; the structure of its crystal was solved in 1965 at the Royal Institution by [[David Chilton Phillips]] and his coworkers, with the computations on the 9,040 reflections performed on the digital computer at the University of London, which greatly facilitated the work.<ref name=eggwhite>{{cite Q|Q28257008}}</ref> Two of the illustrations of the positioning of amino acids in the chain were drawn by Bragg. Unlike myoglobin, in which nearly 80 per cent of the amino-acid residues are in the [[Alpha helix|alpha-helix]] conformation, in lysozyme the alpha-helix content is only about 40 per cent of the amino-acid residues found in four main stretches. Other stretches are of the [[310 helix|3<sub>10</sub> helix]], a conformation that they had proposed earlier.<ref>Bragg et al. 1950.</ref> In this conformation, every third peptide is hydrogen-bonded back to the first peptide, thus forming a ring containing ten atoms. They had the complete structure of an enzyme in time for Bragg's 75th birthday. He became Professor Emeritus in 1966.

X-ray analysis of protein structure flourished in subsequent years, determining the structures of scores of proteins in laboratories around the world. Twenty eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work using X-ray analysis. The disadvantage of the method is that it must be done on crystals, which precludes seeing changes in shape when enzymes bind substrates and the like. This problem was solved by the development of another line Bragg had initiated, using modified electron microscopes to image single frozen molecules: [[cryo-electron microscopy]].<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2017/ |title = The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017}}</ref>

In his long association with the [[Royal Institution]] he was:

*Professor of Natural Philosophy, 1938–1953
*[[Fullerian Professor of Chemistry]], 1954–1966
*Superintendent of the House, 1954–1966
*Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory, 1954–1966
*[[Director of the Royal Institution]], 1965–1966
*Emeritus Professor, 1966–1971

==Personal life==
In 1921, Bragg married Alice Hopkinson (1899–1989), a cousin of a Cecil Hopkinson (1891–1917), who shared rooms with Bragg, and was one of his closest friends whilst they were both studying at Cambridge.<ref>{{cite journal | access-date = 7 December 2024 | title = Crystal Clear: The Autobiographies of Sir Lawrence & Lady Bragg | doi = 10.1063/PT.3.3270 | date=2015 | first1=  A. M. | last1 = Glazer | first2= Patience | last2 = Thomson | journal = Physics Today | volume = 69 | issue = 8 | pages = 54–56 | url=  https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/69/8/54/1040798/Crystal-Clear-The-Autobiographies-of-Sir-Lawrence}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | access-date = 7 December 2024 |  website = American Institute of Physics | title = Oral History: William Lawrence Bragg | url= https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/28531 | first = David | last =Edge | date= 20 June 1969 }}</ref> Cecil was the son of [[John Hopkinson]] who was Alice's uncle.

They had four children, the engineer [[Stephen Bragg|Stephen Lawrence]] (1923–2014), David William (1926–2005), Margaret Alice (1931–2022) (who married the diplomat [[Mark Heath]]), and Patience Mary (1935–2020) (who married David, the son of [[George Paget Thomson]] the Nobel prize winning physicist<ref name="Made them">{{cite book | title = Manchester Made Them  | date=2001|  first = Katharine| last = Chorley | isbn= 978-1902685090  |publisher =Silk Press Ltd | chapter= Foreword | page= 5}}</ref>). Alice was on the staff at [[Withington Girls' School]] until Bragg was appointed director of the National Physical Laboratory in 1937.<ref name=WGS /> She was active in a number of public bodies and served as [[List of mayors of Cambridge|Mayor of Cambridge]] from 1945 to 1946.

Bragg's hobbies included drawing – family letters were illustrated with lively sketches – painting, literature and a lifelong interest in gardening.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Thomson|first=Patience|title=A tribute to W. L. Bragg by his younger daughter|journal=[[Acta Crystallographica Section A]]|year=2013|volume=A69|issue=Pt 1|pages=5–7|access-date=24 December 2012|url=http://journals.iucr.org/a/issues/2013/01/00/wl0018/wl0018.pdf|pmid=23250053|doi=10.1107/S0108767312047514|doi-access=free|bibcode=2013AcCrA..69....5T }}</ref> When he moved to London, he missed having a garden and so worked as a part-time gardener, unrecognised by his employer, until a guest at the house expressed surprise at seeing him there.<ref>{{cite book |title=What Mad Pursuit |first=Francis |last=Crick |page=53 |isbn=978-0140119732 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=1989 }}</ref> 

Bragg died on 1 July 1971 at a hospital near his home in [[Waldringfield]], [[Ipswich]], at the age of 81. He is buried at [[Trinity College, Cambridge]]. His son, David, is buried in the [[Ascension Parish Burial Ground, Cambridge|Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground]] in Cambridge, his grave is within a few paces of that of Bragg's close friend, Rudolph Cecil Hopkinson, who incurred a severe head wound in the 1914–19 war and died a few months after being invalided back to the UK.<ref name="Made them"/>

In August 2013, Bragg's relative, the broadcaster [[Melvyn Bragg]], presented a BBC Radio 4 programme ("Bragg on the Braggs") on the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics winners.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.leeds.ac.uk/forstaff/news/article/4011/bragg_on_the_braggs |title = Bragg on the Braggs| date=2 March 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0383vb0 |title = BBC Radio 4 - Bragg on the Braggs}}</ref>

==Awards and honours==
[[File:Bragg plaque leeds.jpg|thumb|Bragg Family Blue Plaque Leeds]]

On 4 November 1919, Bragg was elected a Member of the [[Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society]].
He was elected a [[List of fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1921|Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1921]]<ref name="frs"/> – "a qualification that makes other ones irrelevant".<ref>G. K. Hunter 2004 ''Light is a Messenger'' Oxford: OUP.</ref> He was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] by [[King George VI]] in the 1941 New Year Honours,<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=35029 |supp=y |page=1 |date=31 December 1940 }} ''Knight bachelor''</ref> and received both the [[Copley Medal]] and the [[Royal Medal]] of the [[Royal Society]]. Although Graeme Hunter, in his book on Bragg ''Light is a Messenger'', argued that he was more a crystallographer than a physicist, Bragg's lifelong activity showed otherwise—he was more of a physicist than anything else. Thus, from 1939 to 1943, he served as President of the [[Institute of Physics]], London.<ref name="CambPhys"/> In the [[1967 New Year Honours]] he was appointed [[Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour]] by [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=44210 |supp=y |page=26 |date=30 December 1966 }} ''CH''</ref>

Since 1967, the [[Institute of Physics]] has awarded the [[Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize]]. Additionally since 1992, the [[Australian Institute of Physics]] has awarded the Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics<ref>[http://www.aip.org.au/info/?q=content/bragg-gold-medal-excellence-physics Bragg Gold Medal for Excellence in Physics] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714133644/http://www.aip.org.au/info/?q=content%2Fbragg-gold-medal-excellence-physics |date=14 July 2014 }}</ref> to commemorate Lawrence Bragg (in front on the medal) and his father, William Bragg, for the best PhD thesis by a student at an [[List of universities in Australia|Australian university]].

* [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] (1915)
* [[Matteucci Medal]] (1915)
* [[Hughes Medal]] (1931)
* [[Dalton Medal]] (1942) of [[Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society]]<ref>Memoirs And Proceedings Of The Manchester Literary And Philosophical Society Volume 152 2013-14</ref>
* [[Royal Medal]] (1946)
* [[Guthrie Medal and Prize|Guthrie Lecture]] (1952)
* [[Copley Medal]] (1966)

The [[Electoral district of Bragg]], in the [[South Australian House of Assembly]], was created in 1970, and was named after both William and Lawrence Bragg.

==See also==
* [[List of Nobel laureates in Physics]]
* [[Artillery in World War I|Tactical artillery terms from World War I]]
* [[Tube Alloys]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Hunter |first=Graeme |title=Light Is A Messenger, the Life and Science of William Lawrence Bragg |isbn=0-19-852921-X |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 }}
* {{cite book |first=John |last=Finch |title=A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor |publisher=Medical Research Council |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-84046-940-0 }} (This book is about the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.)
* {{cite book |first=Matt |last=Ridley |author-link=Matt Ridley |title=Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code |series=Eminent Lives |year=2006 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=0-06-082333-X }}
* {{cite book |first=John |last=Jenkin |title=William and Lawrence Bragg, Father and Son: The Most Extraordinary Collaboration in Science |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2008 }}

==External links==
* {{commons category-inline}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060618160456/http://www.packer34.freeserve.co.uk/selectedTATAwebsites.htm First press stories on DNA]
* [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1915/index.html Nobelprize.org – The Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915]
* {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture, September 6, 1922 ''The Diffraction of X-Rays by Crystals''
* [http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/bond/people/bragg.html A collection] of digitised materials related to Bragg's and [[Linus Pauling]]'s structural chemistry research.
* [http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/dna/people/bragg.html Key Participants: Sir William Lawrence Bragg] – ''Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History''
* [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/ NOVA Episode on Photograph 51]
* [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/28531 Oral History interview transcript with William Lawrence Bragg on 20 June 1969, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives]
* [http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-458785 Bragg, Lawrence (Sir) (1890–1971)] National Library of Australia, ''Trove, People and Organisation'' record for William Lawrence Bragg
*[http://richannel.org/the-nature-of-things--oil-soap-and-detergent The Nature of Things: Oil, Soap and Detergent], Ri Channel video, November 1959
*[http://www.richannel.org/the-nature-of-things--atoms-and-molecules The Nature of Things: Atoms and Molecules], Ri Channel video, October 1959
*[http://www.richannel.org/the-nature-of-things--solids-liquids-and-gases The Nature of Things: Solids, Liquids and Gases], Ri Channel video, November 1959
* {{NPG name}}

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{{s-aca}}
{{s-bef|before= [[Ernest Rutherford]] }}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Langworthy Professor]] at the [[University of Manchester]]| years=1919–37}}
{{s-aft|after=  [[Patrick Blackett]] }}
{{s-bef|before=[[Ernest Rutherford]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Cavendish Professor of Physics|Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics]], [[University of Cambridge]]|years=1938–1953}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Nevill Francis Mott|Nevill Mott]]}} 
{{s-npo|pro}}
{{s-bef|before= Herbert Levinstein }}
{{s-ttl|title=President of the [[Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society]] |years=1927–29}}
{{s-aft|after= Charles Edmond Stromeyer }}
{{s-end}}

{{Copley Medallists 1951-2000}}
{{Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates 1901-1925}}
{{1915 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{FRS 1921}}
{{University of Adelaide}}
{{Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society|state=collapsed}}
{{Dalton Medallists|state=collapsed}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bragg, Lawrence}}
[[Category:1890 births]]
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