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John Mitchell (physicist)

John Wesley Mitchell, FRS (3 December 1913 – 12 July 2007) was a New Zealand-born physicist. He was born the son of an American surveyor in Christchurch, New Zealand and educated at Christchurch Boys' High School. Between 1931 and 1935 he studied chemistry and physics at Canterbury University College and was awarded a B.Sc. and M.Sc. In 1935 he sailed to England with an Exhibition Scholarship to take up a fellowship at Oxford University, where he worked under Professor Cyril Hinshelwood at Trinity College. In 1938 he took a post to teach physics at Repton School, but when war broke out he joined the Armament Research Department at Woolwich Arsenal as a Scientific Officer. There he worked on problems related to ammunition, some of which involved the use of high-speed photography. He was later transferred to Fort Halstead in Kent to work in the Theoretical Physics Division on the analysis of shockwaves. At the end of war in 1945 he moved to Bristol to work at the H.H. Wills Physical Laboratory of the University of Bristol. After a period studying deposited metal surfaces, he took the opportunity in 1948 to undertake a Kodak sponsored investigation into the behaviour of thin-sheet crystals of silver halides, a field of research that would dominate the rest of his career.…

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Article summary

John Wesley Mitchell, FRS (3 December 1913 – 12 July 2007) was a New Zealand-born physicist. He was born the son of an American surveyor in Christchurch, New Zealand and educated at Christchurch Boys' High School. Between 1931 and 1935 he studied chemistry and physics at Canterbury University College and was awarded a B.Sc. and M.Sc. In 1935 he sailed to England with an Exhibition Scholarship to take up a fellowship at Oxford University, where he worked under Professor Cyril Hinshelwood at Trinity College. In 1938 he took a post to teach physics at Repton School, but when war broke out he joined the Armament Research Department at Woolwich Arsenal as a Scientific Officer. There he worked on problems related to ammunition, some of which involved the use of high-speed photography. He was later transferred to Fort Halstead in Kent to work in the Theoretical Physics Division on the analysis of shockwaves. At the end of war in 1945 he moved to Bristol to work at the H.H. Wills Physical Laboratory of the University of Bristol. After a period studying deposited metal surfaces, he took the opportunity in 1948 to undertake a Kodak sponsored investigation into the behaviour of thin-sheet crystals of silver halides, a field of research that would dominate the rest of his career.…

Key claims

  1. date of death: 2007 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of death is "2007". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1332209407

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.