10/02/2024, 11:01 Henry Moseley - Wikipedia

Henry Moseley
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley (/ˈmoʊzli/; 23 November 1887
Henry Moseley
– 10 August 1915) was an English physicist, whose 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 advanced atomic physics, nuclear physics and

quantum physics by providing the first experimental evidence in
favour of Niels Bohr's theory, aside from the hydrogen atom
spectrum which the Bohr theory was designed to reproduce. That
theory refined Ernest Rutherford's and Antonius van den Broek's Moseley in 1914
model, which proposed that the atom contains in its nucleus a Born Henry Gwyn
number of positive nuclear charges that is equal to its (atomic) Jeffreys Moseley
number in the periodic table.[1][2] 23 November 1887
When World War I broke out in Western Europe, Moseley left his Weymouth, Dorset,
research work at the University of Oxford behind to volunteer for England
the Royal Engineers of the British Army. Moseley was assigned to Died 10 August 1915
the force of British Empire soldiers that invaded the region of (aged 27)
Gallipoli, Turkey, in April 1915, as a telecommunications officer. Gallipoli, Ottoman
Moseley was shot and killed during the Battle of Gallipoli on 10 Empire
August 1915, at the age of 27. Experts have speculated that
Moseley could otherwise have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Cause of Killed in action
Physics in 1916.[3][4] death
Education Summer Fields
Biography School
Eton College
Henry G. J. Moseley, known to his friends as Harry,[5] was born Alma mater Trinity College,
in Weymouth in Dorset in 1887. His father Henry Nottidge Oxford
Moseley (1844–1891), who died when Moseley was quite young, University of
was a biologist and also a professor of anatomy and physiology at Manchester
the University of Oxford, who had been a member of the
Challenger Expedition. Moseley's mother was Amabel Gwyn Known for Atomic number,
Jeffreys, the daughter of the Welsh biologist and conchologist Moseley's law
John Gwyn Jeffreys.[6] She was also the British women's Awards Matteucci Medal
champion of chess in 1913.[7][8][a] (1919)

Moseley had been a very promising schoolboy at Summer Fields Scientific career
School (where one of the four "leagues" is named after him), and Fields Physics, chemistry
[9]
he was awarded a King's scholarship to attend Eton College. In
1906 he won the chemistry and physics prizes at Eton.[10] In 1906, Moseley entered Trinity College of
the University of Oxford, where he earned his bachelor's degree. While an undergraduate at Oxford,
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Moseley became a Freemason by joining the Apollo University Lodge.[11] Immediately after
graduation from Oxford in 1910, Moseley became a demonstrator in physics at the University of
Manchester under the supervision of Sir Ernest Rutherford. During Moseley's first year at
Manchester, he had a teaching load as a graduate teaching assistant, but following that first year, he
was reassigned from his teaching duties to work as a graduate research assistant. He declined a
fellowship offered by Rutherford, preferring to move back to Oxford, in November 1913, where he was
given laboratory facilities but no support.[12]: 95

Scientific work
Experimenting with the energy of beta particles in 1912, Moseley showed that high potentials were
attainable from a radioactive source of radium, thereby inventing the first atomic battery, though he
was unable to produce the 1MV necessary to stop the particles.[13]

In 1913, Moseley observed and measured the X-ray spectra of various chemical elements (mostly
metals) that were found by the method of diffraction through crystals.[14] This was a pioneering use of
the method of X-ray spectroscopy in physics, using Bragg's diffraction law to determine the X-ray
wavelengths. Moseley discovered a systematic mathematical relationship between the wavelengths of
the X-rays produced and the atomic numbers of the metals that were used as the targets in X-ray
tubes. This has become known as Moseley's law.

Before Moseley's discovery, the atomic numbers (or elemental number) of an element had been
thought of as a semi-arbitrary sequential number, based on the sequence of atomic masses, but
modified somewhat where chemists found this modification to be desirable, such as by the Russian
chemist, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. In his invention of the Periodic Table of the Elements,
Mendeleev had interchanged the orders of a few pairs of elements to put them in more appropriate
places in this table of the elements. For example, the metals cobalt and nickel had been assigned the
atomic numbers 27 and 28, respectively, based on their known chemical and physical properties, even
though they have nearly the same atomic masses. In fact, the atomic mass of cobalt is slightly larger
than that of nickel, so nickel would be placed in the Periodic Table before cobalt if they were placed
purely according to atomic mass. However Moseley's experiments in X-ray spectroscopy showed
directly from their physics that cobalt and nickel have the different atomic numbers, 27 and 28, and
that they are placed in the Periodic Table correctly by Moseley's objective measurements of their
atomic numbers. Hence, Moseley's discovery demonstrated that the atomic numbers of elements are
not just rather arbitrary numbers based on chemistry and the intuition of chemists, but rather, they
have a firm experimental basis from the physics of their X-ray spectra.

In addition, Moseley showed that there were gaps in the atomic number sequence at numbers 43, 61,
72, and 75. These spaces are now known, respectively, to be the places of the radioactive synthetic
elements technetium and promethium, and also the last two quite rare naturally occurring stable
elements hafnium (discovered 1923) and rhenium (discovered 1925). Nothing was known about these
four elements in Moseley's lifetime, not even their very existence. Based on the intuition of a very
experienced chemist, Dmitri Mendeleev had predicted the existence of a missing element in the
Periodic Table, which was later found to be filled by technetium, and Bohuslav Brauner had predicted
the existence of another missing element in this Table, which was later found to be filled by
promethium. Henry Moseley's experiments confirmed these predictions, by showing exactly what the
missing atomic numbers were, 43 and 61. In addition, Moseley predicted the existence of two more
undiscovered elements, those with the atomic numbers 72 and 75, and gave very strong evidence that
there were no other gaps in the Periodic Table between the elements aluminium (atomic number 13)
and gold (atomic number 79).

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This latter question about the possibility of more undiscovered ("missing") elements had been a
standing problem among the chemists of the world, particularly given the existence of the large family
of the lanthanide series of rare earth elements. Moseley was able to demonstrate that these lanthanide
elements, i.e. lanthanum through lutetium, must have exactly 15 members – no more and no less. The
number of elements in the lanthanides had been a question that was very far from being settled by the
chemists of the early 20th Century. They could not yet produce pure samples of all the rare-earth
elements, even in the form of their salts, and in some cases they were unable to distinguish between
mixtures of two very similar (adjacent) rare-earth elements from the nearby pure metals in the
Periodic Table. For example, there was a so-called "element" that was even given the chemical name
of "didymium". "Didymium" was found some years later to be simply a mixture of two genuine rare-
earth elements, and these were given the names neodymium and praseodymium, meaning "new twin"
and "green twin". Also, the method of separating the rare-earth elements by the method of ion
exchange had not been invented yet in Moseley's time.

Moseley's method in early X-ray spectroscopy was able to sort out the above chemical problems
promptly, some of which had occupied chemists for a number of years. Moseley also predicted the
existence of element 61, a lanthanide whose existence was previously unsuspected. Quite a few years
later, this element 61 was created artificially in nuclear reactors and was named
promethium.[15][16][17][18][19]

Contribution to understanding of the atom

Before Moseley and his law, atomic numbers had been thought of as a semi-arbitrary ordering
number, vaguely increasing with atomic weight but not strictly defined by it. Moseley's discovery
showed that atomic numbers were not arbitrarily assigned, but rather, they have a definite physical
basis. Moseley postulated that each successive element has a nuclear charge exactly one unit greater
than its predecessor. Moseley redefined the idea of atomic numbers from its previous status as an ad
hoc numerical tag to help sorting the elements into an exact sequence of ascending atomic numbers
that made the Periodic Table exact. (This was later to be the basis of the Aufbau principle in atomic
studies.) As noted by Bohr, Moseley's law provided a reasonably complete experimental set of data
that supported the (new from 1911) conception by Ernest Rutherford and Antonius van den Broek of
the atom, with a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons in which the
atomic number is understood to be the exact physical number of positive charges (later discovered
and called protons) in the central atomic nuclei of the elements. Moseley mentioned the two scientists
above in his research paper, but he did not actually mention Bohr, who was rather new on the scene
then. Simple modifications of Rydberg's and Bohr's formulas were found to give a theoretical
justification for Moseley's empirically derived law for determining atomic numbers.

Use of X-ray spectrometer

X-ray spectrometers are the foundation-stones of X-ray crystallography. The X-ray spectrometers as
Moseley knew them worked as follows. A glass-bulb electron tube was used, similar to that held by
Moseley in the photo here. Inside the evacuated tube, electrons were fired at a metallic substance (i.e.
a sample of pure element in Moseley's work), causing the ionization of electrons from the inner
electron shells of the element. The rebound of electrons into these holes in the inner shells next causes
the emission of X-ray photons that were led out of the tube in a semi-beam, through an opening in the
external X-ray shielding. These are next diffracted by a standardized salt crystal, with angular results
read out as photographic lines by the exposure of an X-ray film fixed at the outside the vacuum tube at

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a known distance. Application of Bragg's law (after some initial

guesswork of the mean distances between atoms in the metallic
crystal, based on its density) next allowed the wavelength of the
emitted X-rays to be calculated.

Moseley participated in the design and development of early X-ray

spectrometry equipment,[20][21] learning some techniques from
William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg at the
University of Leeds, and developing others himself. Many of the
techniques of X-ray spectroscopy were inspired by the methods Moseley in the Balliol-Trinity
that are used with visible light spectroscopes and spectrograms, by Laboratories in 1910
substituting crystals, ionization chambers, and photographic
plates for their analogs in light spectroscopy. In some cases,
Moseley found it necessary to modify his equipment to detect particularly soft (lower frequency) X-
rays that could not penetrate either air or paper, by working with his instruments in a vacuum
chamber.

Death and aftermath

Sometime in the first half of 1914, Moseley resigned from his position at Manchester, with plans to
return to Oxford and continue his physics research there. However, World War I broke out in August
1914, and Moseley turned down this job offer to instead enlist with the Royal Engineers of the British
Army. His family and friends tried to persuade him not to join, but he thought it was his duty.[22]
Moseley served as a technical officer in communications during the Battle of Gallipoli, in Turkey,
beginning in April 1915, where he was killed by a sniper on 10 August 1915.

Only twenty-seven years old at the time of his death, Moseley

could, in the opinion of some scientists, have contributed much to
the knowledge of atomic structure had he survived. Niels Bohr
said in 1962 that Rutherford's work "was not taken seriously at all"
and that the "great change came from Moseley."[23]

Robert Millikan wrote, "In a research which is destined to rank as

one of the dozen most brilliant in conception, skillful in execution,
and illuminating in results in the history of science, a young man
twenty-six years old threw open the windows through which we
can glimpse the sub-atomic world with a definiteness and
certainty never dreamed of before. Had the European War had no Blue plaque erected by the Royal
other result than the snuffing out of this young life, that alone Society of Chemistry on the
would make it one of the most hideous and most irreparable Townsend Building of Oxford's
Clarendon Laboratory,
crimes in history."[24]
commemorating Moseley's work on
George Sarton wrote, "His fame was already established on such a X-rays emitted by elements
secure foundation that his memory will be green forever. He is one
of the immortals of science, and though he would have made many
other additions to our knowledge if his life had been spared, the contributions already credited to him
were of such fundamental significance, that the probability of his surpassing himself was extremely
small. It is very probable that however long his life, he would have been chiefly remembered because
of the 'Moseley law' which he published at the age of twenty-six."[25]

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Isaac Asimov wrote, "In view of what he [Moseley] might still have accomplished … his death might
well have been the most costly single death of the War to mankind generally."[4]: 714 Rutherford
believed that Moseley's work would have earned him the Nobel Prize (which however is never
awarded posthumously).[3]

Memorial plaques to Moseley were installed at Manchester and Eton, and a Royal Society scholarship,
established by his will, had as its second recipient the physicist P. M. S. Blackett, who later became
president of the Society.[12]: 126 The Institute of Physics Henry Moseley Medal and Prize is named in
his honour.[26]

Notes
a. After the death of her first husband, she married again, to William Johnson Sollas, a professor of
geology at Oxford University.

References
1. Rutherford, E. (1911). "The scattering of α and β particles by matter and the structure of the atom"
(https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024088547;view=1up;seq=681). Philosophical
Magazine. 6th series. 21 (125): 669–688.
2. Broek, A. van den (1913). "Die Radioelemente, das periodische System und die Konstitution der
Atome" (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015021268936;view=1up;seq=68) [Radio-
elements, the periodic system, and the constitution of atoms]. Physikalische Zeitschrift (in
German). 14: 32–41.
3. Rutherford, Ernest. "Moseley, Henry Gwyn Jeffreys". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35125 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fre
f%3Aodnb%2F35125). (Subscription or UK public library membership (https://www.oxforddnb.com/hel
p/subscribe#public) required.)
4. Asimov, Isaac (1982). "1121. MOSELEY, Henry Gwyn-Jeffreys". Asimov's Biographical
Encyclopedia of Science and Technology (2nd revised ed.). New York etc.: Doubleday. pp. 713–
714.
5. Rhodes, Richard (18 September 2012). Making of the atomic bomb. Simon and Schuster. pp. 81–
83.
6. "This Month in Physics History August 10, 1915: Henry G.J. Moseley Killed in Action" (http://www.
aps.org/publications/apsnews/201208/physicshistory.cfm). APS News. American Physical Society.
21 (8). 2012. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
7. "Amabel Sollas" (https://books.google.com/books?id=5b5AAQAAMAAJ&q=Amabel+Sollas).
British Chess Magazine. 37–38: 357. 1917.
8. "Sollas, Amabel" (http://www.edochess.ca/players/p7362.html). EDO Historical Chess Ratings.
Retrieved 31 December 2019.
9. Heilbron, John L. (1966). "The Work of H. G. J. Moseley". Isis. 57 (3): 336–364.
doi:10.1086/350143 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F350143). ISSN 0021-1753 (https://www.worldcat.
org/issn/0021-1753). JSTOR 228365 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/228365). S2CID 144765815 (htt
ps://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:144765815).- JSTOR article; permission required
10. Public Schools Year Book 1906.
11. Jordan, Christopher (2015). WWI REMEMBEREDMemories of and by Club Members (https://oxfo
rdandcambridgeclub.co.uk/app/uploads/2015/09/OC_WWI_Book_FINAL.pdf) (PDF). London:
Oxford and Cambridge Club. Retrieved 13 December 2019.

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12. Heilbron, John L. (1974). H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist, 1887–
1915 (https://books.google.com/books?id=vO0d-SBw6DEC). Berkeley and Los Angeles,
California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02375-8.
13. Moseley, H. G. J. (1913). "The attainment of high potentials by the use of Radium" (http://rspa.roy
alsocietypublishing.org/content/88/605.toc). Proceedings of the Royal Society. 88 (605): 471–476.
Bibcode:1913RSPSA..88..471M (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1913RSPSA..88..471M).
doi:10.1098/rspa.1913.0045 (https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frspa.1913.0045). Retrieved 5 January
2013.
14. Moseley, H.G.J. (1913). "The high-frequency spectra of the elements" (https://archive.org/stream/l
ondonedinburg6261913lond#page/1024/mode/2up). Philosophical Magazine. 6th series. 26:
1024–1034.
15. Marshall, James L. Marshall; Marshall, Virginia R. Marshall (2016). "Rediscovery of the elements:
The Rare Earths–The Last Member" (https://chemistry.unt.edu/sites/default/files/users/owj0001/rar
e%20earths%20III_0.pdf) (PDF). The Hexagon: 4–9. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
16. Marshall, James L. Marshall; Marshall, Virginia R. Marshall (2015). "Rediscovery of the elements:
The Rare Earths–The Confusing Years" (http://www.chem.unt.edu/~jimm/REDISCOVERY%207-0
9-2018/Hexagon%20Articles/rare%20earths%20II.pdf) (PDF). The Hexagon: 72–77. Retrieved
30 December 2019.
17. Weeks, Mary Elvira (1956). The discovery of the elements (https://archive.org/details/discoveryoft
heel002045mbp) (6th ed.). Easton, PA: Journal of Chemical Education.
18. Laing, Michael (2005). "A Revised Periodic Table: With the Lanthanides Repositioned".
Foundations of Chemistry. 7 (3): 203–233. doi:10.1007/s10698-004-5959-9 (https://doi.org/10.100
7%2Fs10698-004-5959-9). S2CID 97792365 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:9779236
5).
19. Cantrill, Stuart (21 November 2018). "Promethium unbound" (https://stuartcantrill.com/2018/11/21/
promethium-unbound/). Chemical connections. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
20. Scerri, Eric R. (2007). The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance (https://archive.org/details/
periodictableits0000scer). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530573-9.
21. Scerri, Eric R. (2014). "Master of Missing Elements" (https://www.americanscientist.org/article/mas
ter-of-missing-elements). American Scientist. 102 (5): 358–365. doi:10.1511/2014.110.358 (https://
doi.org/10.1511%2F2014.110.358). Retrieved 31 December 2019.
22. Reynosa, Peter. "An Ode to Henry Moseley" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-reynosa/an-ode
-to-henry-moseley_b_8924690.html). HuffPost. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
23. "Oral History Transcript: Niels Bohr - Session I" (https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-li
brary/oral-histories/4517-1). American Institute of Physics. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
24. Cropper, William (1970). The Quantum Physicists and an Introduction to Their Physics. Oxford
University Press. p. 53.
25. Sarton, George (1927) "Moseley [1887 – 1915] The Numbering of the Elements", Isis 9: 96–111,
reprinted in Sarton on the History of Science (1962), Dorothy Stimson editor, Harvard University
Press
26. "Henry Moseley Medal and Prize" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200803121349/https://www.iop.
org/about/awards/early-career/moseley/page_38648.html). Institute of Physics. Archived from the
original (http://www.iop.org/about/awards/early-career/moseley/page_38648.html) on 3 August
2020. Retrieved 28 December 2019.

Further reading
Jaffe, Bernard (1971). Moseley and the Numbering of the Elements (https://archive.org/details/mo

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seleynumbering0000jaff). Garden City, New York: Anchor Books.

External links

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