Bragg, (William) Lawrence (1890–1971)

Australian-born British physicist. He shared with his father William Bragg the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 for their research work on X-rays and crystals.

Bragg was born in Adelaide and studied mathematics there and at Cambridge, England, then switched to physics. He was professor of physics at the University of Manchester 1919–38 and at Cambridge 1938–54.

He became interested in the work of Max von Laue, who claimed to have observed X-ray diffraction in crystals. Bragg was able to determine an equation now known as Bragg's law that enabled both him and his father to deduce the structure of crystals such as diamond, using the X-ray spectrometer built by his father. For this, he was the youngest person (at age 25) ever to receive the Nobel Prize. Knighted in 1941.

Lawrence Bragg then went on to determine the structures of such inorganic substances as silicates.