Davisson Crater Honors American Physicist Clinton Joseph Davisson

Summary: The lunar far side’s Davisson Crater honors American physicist Clinton Joseph Davisson, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937.

Details of Lunar Astronautical Charts (LAC) 120 shows Davisson Crater overlapping Leibnitz Crater in the lunar far side’s southeastern quadrant; courtesy NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) / GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) / ASU (Arizona State University): U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

The lunar far side’s Davisson Crater honors American physicist Clinton Joseph Davisson, who received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937 for discovering the wave-like properties of electrons.

Davisson Crater is a dark-floored lunar impact crater in the lunar far side’s southeastern quadrant. Terraces are discernible along the crater’s western interior wall. The relatively level interior floor displays a low central peak that rises slightly to the southwest of the crater’s midpoint.

Davisson is centered at minus 37.93 degrees south latitude, minus 174.97 degrees west longitude, according to the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. The southern hemisphere crater’s northernmost and southernmost latitudes occur at minus 36.44 degrees south and minus 39.42 degrees south, respectively. The impact-eroded crater marks easternmost and westernmost longitudes at minus 173.18 degrees west and minus 176.78 degrees west, respectively. Davisson’s diameter measures 92.46 kilometers.

Davisson Crater’s rim and outer rampart barge across the eastern rim of Leibnitz Crater and settle on Leibnitz’s interior floor. Leibnitz is centered at minus 38.24 degrees south latitude, 179.35 degrees east longitude. The roughly circular crater obtains northernmost and southernmost latitudes at minus 34.35 degrees south and minus 42.12 degrees south, respectively. Its easternmost and westernmost longitudes are reached at minus 175.78 degrees east and 174.49 degrees west, respectively. Leibnitz Crater’s diameter spans 236.67 kilometers.

Davisson Crater honors American physicist Clinton Joseph Davisson (Oct. 22, 1881-Feb. 1, 1958). The International Astronomical Union approved the crater’s official name in 1970 during the organization’s XIVth (14th) General Assembly, which was held in the seaside resort of Brighton in South East England from Tuesday, Aug. 18, to Thursday, Aug. 27.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selected Clinton Joseph Davisson and English physicist Sir George Paget Thomson (May 3, 1892-Sept. 10, 1975) as joint laureates of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1937. The prize recognized the independent discoveries of the wave-like properties of electrons by Davisson and Thomson.

Davisson made his discovery at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Manhattan, New York. In his required Nobel Lecture, given Dec. 13, 1937, Davisson noted his accidental discoveries over eight years, beginning in 1919, led to his discovery of electron diffraction, the wave nature of electrons. He referenced his two collaborators, first American physicist Charles Henry Kunsman (June 7, 1890-April 15, 1970) and then, beginning in 1924, his successor, American physicist Lester Halbert Germer (Oct. 10, 1896-Oct. 3, 1971), as “exceptionally able” contributors to the investigation. In 1927, Davisson and Germer achieved electron diffraction by directing a beam of electrons against the face of a crystal of nickel. Their successful experiment is known as the Davisson-Germer experiment.

Thomson made his discovery at the University of Aberdeen in northeastern Scotland. He first reported his findings in a letter, “Diffraction of Cathode Rays by a Thin Film,” co-authored with one of his students, Alexander Reid, and published in the June 18, 1927, issue of Nature.

Prior to its formal naming, Davisson Crater was designated as Crater 377. The second edition of NASA’s Lunar Farside Chart (LFC-1), prepared by the Department of Defense’s Aeronautical Chart and Information Center and published October 1967, identifies Leibnitz Crater as 374 and its eastern intruder, Davisson Crater, as 377.

Clinton Davisson married Charlotte Sara Richardson on Aug. 4, 1911. During his graduate work at Princeton University in New Jersey, Davisson met his future wife while she was visiting her brother, British physicist Sir Owen Willans Richardson (April 26, 1879-Feb. 15, 1959), who headed Princeton’s Physics Department.

Davisson’s brother-in-law received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1928. His namesake lunar crater, located distantly to the northwest of Davisson Crater, lies in the lunar far side’s northwest quadrant.

The takeaways for the lunar far side’s Davisson Crater, which honors American physicist Clinton Joseph Davisson, are that the primary lunar impact crater overlaps adjacent Leibnitz Crater in the far side’s southeastern quadrant; that the crater’s namesake received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1937 for his discovery of the wave properties of electrons; and that a crater in the far side’s northwest quadrant honors his brother-in-law, 1928 Nobel physics laureate Sir Owen Richardson.

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows lunar far side’s Davisson Crater’s intrusion into Leibnitz Crater in the southeastern quadrant: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Detail of Lunar Astronautical Charts (LAC) 120 shows Davisson Crater overlapping Leibnitz Crater in the lunar far side’s southeastern quadrant; courtesy NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) / GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) / ASU (Arizona State University): U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/Lunar/lac-120_wac.pdf

Detail of Shaded Relief and Color-Coded Topography Map shows lunar far side’s Davisson Crater’s intrusion into Leibnitz Crater in the southeastern quadrant: U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS Astrogeology Science Center / Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/moon_farside.pdf

For further information:

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Davisson, C.J. (Clinton Joseph); and L.H. (Lester Halbert) Germer. “Reflection of Electrons by a Crystal of Nickel.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 14, no. 4 (April 1928): 317-322.
Available via JSTOR @ https://www.jstor.org/stable/i205154
Available via NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) @ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1085484/pdf/pnas01816-0027.pdf

de Jager, C. (Cornelis); and A. (Arnost) Jappel, eds. XIVth General Assembly Transactions of the IAU Vol. XIV B Proceedings of the 14th General Assembly Brighton, United Kingdom, August 18-27, 1970. Washington DC: Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Jan. 1, 1971.
Available @ https://www.iau.org/publications/iau/transactions_b/

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Available @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1428

International Astronomical Union (IAU) / U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. “Leibnitz.” USGS Astrogeology Science Center > Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature > Nomenclature > The Moon. Last updated Oct. 18, 2010.
Available @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/3335

International Astronomical Union (IAU) / U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. “Target: The Moon.” USGS Astrogeology Science Center > Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature > Nomenclature > The Moon.
Available @ https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/MOON/target

Kelly, Mervin J. “Clinton Joseph Davisson 1881-1958.” National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir. Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1962.
Available via NAS Online @ http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/davisson-clinton.pdf

Levy, David H. Skywatching. Revised and updated. San Francisco CA: Fog City Press, 1994.

Marriner, Derdriu. “Richardson Crater Honors British Physicist Sir Owen Willans Richardson.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, April 11, 2012.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/04/richardson-crater-honors-british.html

Marriner, Derdriu. “Richardson Crater Parents Two Satellites on Lunar Far Side.” Earth and Space News. Wednesday, April 18, 2012.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2012/04/richardson-crater-parents-two.html

The Moon Wiki. “IAU Directions.” The Moon.
Available @ https://the-moon.us/wiki/IAU_directions

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Available @ https://the-moon.us/wiki/Davisson

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Available @ https://the-moon.us/wiki/Leibnitz

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and Department of Defense Aeronautical Chart and Information Center. Lunar Farside Chart LFC-1. Second edition. October 1967.
Available @ https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/LunarFarsideCharts/LFC-1%201stEd/LFC-1%202ndEd/LFC-1A/

Thomson, G.P. (George Paget); and A. (Alexander) Reid. “Diffraction of Cathode Rays by a Thin Film.” Nature, vol. 119, issue 890 (June 18, 1927).
Available via Nature @ https://www.nature.com/articles/119890a0