 clinton joseph davisson (october 22, 1881 &ndash; february 1, 1958), was an american physicist who won the 1937 nobel prize in physics for his discovery of electron diffraction in the famous davisson-germer experiment. davisson shared the nobel prize with george paget thomson, who independently discovered electron diffraction at about the same time as davisson. ==biography== ===early years=== davisson was born in bloomington, illinois. he graduated from bloomington high school in 1902, and entered the university of chicago on scholarship. upon the recommendation of robert a. millikan, in 1905 davisson was hired by princeton university as instructor of physics. he completed the requirements for his b.s. degree from chicago in 1908, mainly by working in the summers. while teaching at princeton, he did doctoral thesis research with owen richardson. he received his ph.d. in physics from princeton in 1911; in the same year he married richardson's sister, charlotte. ===career=== davisson was then appointed as an assistant professor at the carnegie institute of technology. in 1917 he took a leave from the carnegie institute to do war-related research with the engineering department of the western electric company (later bell telephone laboratories). at the end of the war, davisson accept
1881_births 1958_deaths American_Nobel_laureates Elliott_Cresson_Medal_recipients Experimental_physicists National_Academy_of_Sciences_laureates Nobel_laureates_in_Physics People_from_Bloomington,_Illinois Scientists_at_Bell_Labs Winners_of_the_Comstock_Prize_in_Physics