Killed in action at
Gallipoli in the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915, aged just twenty-seven, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys
Moseley was widely regarded as the most promising British physicist of his
generation. His pioneering measurements of X-ray spectra provided a firm basis for
the concept of atomic number
and re-cast the periodic table of the elements into its modern form. Had he survived, he seemed
destined to win a Nobel Prize.


This book is a
commemoration of Moseley’s life, work, and legacy. Inspired by the exhibition ‘Dear
Harry… Henry Moseley: A Scientist Lost to War’, at the Museum of the
History of Science, Oxford, in 2015-2016, and revisiting earlier accounts,
thirteen historians and scientists chart his experience of Manchester and
Oxford; his military service; the reception of his work by the scientific
community; and the impact of his work upon X-ray spectroscopy in physics,
chemistry, and materials science.


 


For Science, King &
Country speaks to those with an interest in history, science, and the
First World War, and draws upon
a wealth of archives, artefacts, and recent research on the reward systems of science.
Overall, it presents a comprehensive account of a young scientist
whose brief but mercurial career
paved the way to a new understanding of nature, and to shaping the future of physical
science.