Important English physicist (1856-1940) who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1906 for his discovery and identification of the electron. Rare ALS, one page, 4.75 x 7, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge letterhead (struck through and altered to "Trinity Lodge"), January 12, no year (circa 1918-1919). Brief handwritten letter to distinguished Irish mathematical physicist Professor Arthur W. Conway, in full: “Could you come and dine with us very quietly at the Lodge to-morrow, (Thursday) at 8 o’clock.” In fine condition, with some light creasing. Thomson's alteration of the letterhead from Cavendish Laboratory to Trinity Lodge places this letter, at the earliest, in 1918, the year he became Master of Trinity College in Cambridge, a position that he held until his death. His predecessor, Henry Montagu Butler, died on January 14, 1918. That Thomson is still using his old Cavendish Laboratory letterhead points to a possibly hasty transition from one institution to the other. Only the third instance in which we have offered Thomson in any format. President of University College Dublin between 1940 and 1947, Arthur Conway (1875-1950) is noted for writing one of the first books on relativity and for co-editing two volumes of William Rowan Hamilton's collected works. Conway's earliest publications, dating back to 1903, were on the electromagnetic theory, and his application of biquaternion algebra to the special theory of relativity was published as the 43-page tract ‘Relativity’ in 1915.
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