Lost to "War"

imp

Senior Member
Sophomore year high school, I read of H. G. Moseley's contribution to modern Physics. That was 1957. The text failed to tell the "whole story".

Henry Gwynn-Jeffries Mosely was a brilliant young British Physicist who saw and understood principles of that Science which would prove pivotal in the field. His work ensued just before WW-I broke out. As fate would have it, (or, monumental stupidity on the part of British leadership), Mosely was sent off to the front lines to fight for his country, assigned to a Combat Unit, he was killed in action, a monstrous loss, I believe, to the Scientific Community. This is one of those governmental "imponderables" from which I have never recovered. imp

"Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley known as Harry Moseley[SUP][1][/SUP] (23 November 1887 – 10 August 1915) was an English physicist. Moseley's outstanding contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra. Moseley's Law justified many concepts in chemistry by sorting the chemical elements of the periodic table of the elements in a logical order based on their physics."

"Moseley was shot and killed during the Battle of Gallipoli on 10 August 1915, at the age of 27. Some prominent authors have speculated that Moseley could have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1916, had he not died in the service of the British Army.[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Moseley[/SUP]
 

So many brilliant minds are lost to wars. Gallipoli was a throrough tragedy. Complete waste of life with nothing gained at all. It's not enough that Winston Churchill accepted responsibility for it. Let's just be grateful that Albert Einstein averted wars and contributed so extensively to the science of physics.

That's a shame about Moseley not receiving the Nobel prize. Have they never awarded a prize posthumously?
 
Never mind,at least Churchill redeemed himself by conducting a strong performance during Word War 2.
 


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