Henry Moseley

Henry Moseley
His life, scientific work and events leading to his death
1
ν = ν0 2
(1
─ 1
22
) (N ─ 1)
2
Periodic Table of the Elements
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley
(23 November 1887 – 10 August 1915)
Henry Moseley lost his life on 10 August 1915 at the Gallipoli Battle during World War I
Life of Moseley
Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley, Jr. was born on 23 November 1887 in Weymouth, Dorset, England. He is also known as “Harry
Moseley” because his family used to call him “Harry.” He came from a rich and aristocratic family that included famous
scientists. His father was a professor of anatomy and physiology at the Oxford University, and also a naturalist. For
example, he joined the scientific staff of HMS Challenger to study ocean bottoms for four years (1872-1876). On his
return, H. N. Moseley wrote an account of his experiences during the voyage on HMS Challenger, Notes of a Naturalist on
the “Challenger” (1879). Shortly after receiving a copy, Charles Darwin wrote to him “Your volume is a mass of interesting
facts and discoveries, with hardly a superfluous word.”
Henry was the youngest of the three children in the family. The eldest was his sister Betty (born in 1883), who died at
sixteen. The second sister, Margery (born in 1884) became his closest friend and confidante. Henry was only 4 years old
when his father died at the age of 47 in 1891 due to cerebral sclerosis.
At the age of 13, Henry passed a competitive examination and entered Eton College with a King’s Scholarship. This school
catered mainly to the sons of the upper-middle class families and furnished a large share of Britain’s politicians, industrial
leaders, etc. Henry’s mathematics was good. In the last two years of school, Henry also began to study physics and
chemistry. He graduated with a scholarship in natural sciences.
In 1906, Henry entered the Trinity College at the University of Oxford, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1910.
Henry received second class honors in physics and always considered it a “failure.”
Henry Nottidge Moseley
Amabel Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley
Henry Moseley in 1906
Little Henry
Moseley goes to Manchester
After graduating from the Trinity College, Moseley contacted Prof. Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester
and expressed his desire to work with him. Rutherford accepted him and he moved to Manchester in September 1910. The
laboratory of Rutherford, who is considered the father of modern nuclear physics, was a kind of “nursery of genius” with
young scientists from different countries who lay the foundations of much of modern atomic physics. First, Moseley had a
teaching load as a “Lecturer and Demonstrator” for the first year. Then, he was reassigned to work as a “graduate
research assistant.” Moseley worked with Kasimir Fajans, a Polish German, on the disintegration of radioactive actinium.
They published their findings in Philosophical Magazine (22, 629-938, 1911). Afterwards, Moseley continued working on
radioactivity at the request of Rutherford and published three more papers in Proceedings of the Royal Society (87, 230255,1912; 88, 471-476, 1913) and Philosophical Magazine (23, 302-310, 1912).
C. G. Darwin
H. Geiger
A. Schuster
H. Moseley
E. Rutherford
E. Marsden
Moseley’s big interest was the nature of X-rays. He believed that such a work would shed light on the nature of the
atom. Moseley asked his childhood friend Charles G. Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandson), who was a mathematician and
theoretical physicist, to join him in this work. Rutherford, however, objected and felt that nobody including himself in
Manchester knew about the techniques to be used in this work. After a short while, he consented to let Moseley and
Darwin to try. So began Moseley’s revolutionary work on X-rays.
Moseley’s scientific work
First work using X-rays
Moseley and Darwin built an apparatus, which consisted of a “Müller tube”,
a platinum anticathode (target), a crystal and a detector (ionization
chamber). They tried three crystals, rocksalt (NaCl), selenite (CaSO4) and
potassium ferrocyanide ([K4Fe(CN)6•3H2O]. “The most complete search
was made in the case of the ferrocyanide.” Moseley and Darwin discovered
that the radiation from the X-ray tube with platinum target was of two
kinds, A: radiation of indefinite wavelength analogous to white light, B: five
types of monochromatic radiation, probably characteristic of platinum.
Bragg’s law (nλ = 2d sin θ) was used to calculate the wavelengths of the five
types of monochromatic radiations.
They also found that the X-rays were not manufactured in the crystal
because all their properties were independent of the nature of the
reflecting crystal.
X-ray apparatus of Moseley and Darwin
Fig. 1. General layout; Fig. 1 B. The detector
Moseley and Darwin published their findings in July 1913 in
Philosophical Magazine’ (26, 210-232, 1913) with the title “The
Reflexion of the X-rays.”
Moseley’s scientific work
Second work using X-rays
After publication of their work, Darwin decided to leave X-ray research and to pursue other mathematical and
physical aspects of physics. On the other hand, Moseley was convinced that he could carry the project independently.
He believed that the discovery of unique X-rays wavelengths of every known element offers science a powerful tool
which may shed light on the secrets of the atom’s structure.
In 1913, Antonius van den Broek, a lawyer and amateur physicist in Amsterdam, proposed that all the chemical and
optical (including X-rays) properties of the elements were determined by its serial order in the periodic table of
Mendeleev. Broek’s “doctrine of atomic number” evidently differed from Mendeleev’s fundamental principle that “the
chemical properties of an element depend on its atomic weight.” Chemists had already discovered that, at three places
in the periodic table, i.e., cobalt-nickel, argon-potassium and iodine-tellerium, the chemical order inverts the sequence
of atomic weights. There was no satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon.
Broek, however, was not quite correct. He ascribed a different nuclear charge to every stable or radioactive element
and did not take into account the radioactive elements which were proliferating and confusing scientists.
Moseley decided to test the “Broek’s hypothesis,” as he called it. He declared, “we will see what quantity determines
the X-ray spectra” and began his survey of the high-frequency spectra of the elements.
Moseley made several changes to his apparatus and substituted a photographic plate for the ionization chamber. He
used twelve elements from calcium to zinc (Z = 20 to 30) with the exception of scandium (Z = 21). These elements
included one of the critical pairs, cobalt (AW = 58.93) (Z = 27) and nickel (AW = 58.69) (Z = 28). In only a fortnight,
he got the spectra, the K rays from calcium through zinc, and they followed Z rather AW. He informed Niels Bohr of
his progress, “The results are extremely simple and largely what you expect.” Each element gave two main lines, an α
and a β, of which the former was five times as intense as and 10% softer than the latter. The frequency of the α
component was given to within 0.5% by the “extremely simple” formula, where R is Rydberg frequency:
νKα
3
= ν0 4 (N ─ 1)2
R
Electromagnetic spectrum and X-Ray transitions
Moseley’s scientific work
Second work using X-rays
Having finishing his measurements, Moseley prepared a table that showed the reflection angles of the α and β lines,
the wave lengths, and the atomic numbers and atomic weights of the elements. He had a simple formula in this table:
Q = (ν/¾ν0)½
(ν = the frequency of the radiation α)
0.90
R2 = 0.9999
0.80
(1/λ)½
2
R = 0.9999
Kβ line
0.70
Kα line
0.60
0.50
19
20 21
22
23 24
25
26 27
28
29 30
31
N
“Q increases by a constant amount as we pass from one element to the next, using the chemical order of the elements in the
periodic system. Except in the case of nickel and cobalt, this is also the order of the atomic weights.
We have here a proof that there is in the atom a fundamental quantity, which increase by regular steps as we pass from one
element to the next. This quantity can only be the charge on the central positive nucleus.
N is the same as the number of the place occupied by the element in the periodic system. The atomic number is then for H 1, for
He 2, for Li 3..... for Ca 20….. for Zn 30, etc. The chemical properties are governed by N.
The very close similarity between the X-ray spectra of the different elements show that these radiations originate inside the
atom, and have no direct connection with light spectra and chemical properties which governed by the structure of its surface.”
“Moseley’s Staircase”
The spectra of some elements contained other lines with low intensity.
Moseley thought that these lines may result from impurities in the metal
samples. To prove his point, he also analyzed brass and found the
characteristic α and β lines of copper and zinc. Moseley concluded:
The time would show that he was absolutely right.
Moseley generated a diagram using the spectra of the elements in decreasing
order of frequencies and atomic weights from left to right with the spectrum of
copper on the bottom and that of calcium on the top. This diagram is now
celebrated as “Moseley’s staircase (or step ladder).” The darker of the two
lines in each spectrum is Kα, the other Kβ; brass shows the spectra of both copper
and zinc. An element is missing, scandium (Z = 21), which Moseley had not yet
examined. It was startling that these lines shifted, as the atomic weights of the
target increased, in the directions of shorter and shorter wave lengths.
Conclusion
Mendeleev had discovered in 1869 that “the properties of the elements
were periodic funtions of their atomic weights.” Now, in 1913, with
Moseley’s work, a new and more fundamentally accurate and enduring road
map of the elments was presented to science, Moseley’s table of atomic
numbers. By this, it could now be stated:
“The properties of the elements are periodic functions of the atomic
number of the elements”
Moseley published his work with the title “The High-Frequency Spectra of
the Elements” in Philosophical Magazine (26, 1024-1034, 1913).
Hungarian chemist and Nobel Laureate György von Hevesy emphasized in
one his papers in 1923 that Moseley’s results were ”amazingly simple”
and“the atomic theory would not predict this simplicity.”
Philosophical Magazine 26, 1024-1034, 1913
Moseley’s scientific work
Third work using X-rays
In November 1913, Moseley felt the need for a drastic change. He went to Oxford to be nearer to his vidowed mother while
continuing his experiments. Rutherford tried hard to persuade him to stay in Manchester, but without success.
In Oxford, he measured the Kα and Kβ lines for elements from aluminum to silver, and then Lα, Lβ, Lϕ and Lγ lines for elements
from zirconium to gold.
QK =
ν
ν0
3
4
N–1
QK =
QL =
ν
5
ν
36 0
ν = frequency of the α line; ν0 = Rydberg frequency
 N – 7.4
QL =
Moseley’s scientific work
Third paper using X-rays
“From the approximate linear relation between
N for each line we obtain the general equation”
Lβ
ν = A (N – b)2
Lα
Lϕ
For Kα line
Lγ
A=
( 11
2
1 ν
0
22
)
─
and
b=1
For Lα line
A=
( 12
2
─
1 ν
0
32
)
and
b = 7.4
Kα
Kβ
Moseley’s Law
1
ν = ν0 2
(1
1
ν = ν0 2
(2
─
─
1
22
1
32
) (N ─ 1)
2
) (N ─ 7.4)
2
1
2
ν and
Summary
1. Every element from aluminium to gold is characterized by an integer N which determines its X-ray spectrum. Every detail in
the spectrum of an element can therefore be predicted from the spectra of its neighbours.
2. This integer N, the atomic number of the element, which controls the X-ray spectrum, is identified with the number of
positive units of electricity contained in the atomic nucleus.
3. We can conclude from the evidenc of the X-ray spectra alone, without using any theory of atomic structure, that these
integers are really characteristic of the elements.
4. Known elements correspond with all the numbers between 13 and 79 except three.
5. As it is improbable that two different stable elements should have the same integer, three, and only three, more elements
are likely to exist between Al and Au.
6. Wacant lines have been left for an element between Mo and Ru, an element between Nd and Sa (Sm), and an element
between W and Os. Thus these unknown elements will have atomic numbers 43, 61 and 75, respectively.
6. The order of the atomic numbers is the same as that of the atomic weights, except where the latter disagrees with the
order of the chemical properties. These are:
Ar (N = 18; AW = 39.95) and K (N = 19; AW = 39.10)
Co (N = 27; AW = 58.93) and Ni (N = 28; AW = 58.69)
Te (N = 52; AW = 127.60 and I (N = 53; AW = 126.90).
7. The frequency of any line in the X-ray spectrum is approximately proportional to A(N ─ b)2, where A and b are constants.
Philosophical Magazine 27, 703-713, 1914
Moseley’s scientific work
Third work using X-rays
“...... More than thirty other elements have now been investigated, and
simple laws have been found which govern the results, and make it
possible to predict with confidence the position of the principal lines in
the spectrum of any element from aluminium to gold. The present
contribution is a general preliminary survey, which claims neither to be
complete nor very accurate.”
The X-ray tube for obtaining hard X rays
Philosophical Magazine 27, 703-713, 1914
What remains of the apparatus
X-ray tube for obtaining soft X-rays
and the spectrometer
What remains of the apparatus
Lanthanide series of rare-earth elements
Mendeleev once admitted “The position of the rare earths to be one of the most difficult problems offered to the Periodic
Law.” He could find no places for them in his list of the elements. Chemists had great difficulties for isolation and purifying
these elements. This problem had occupied chemists for years. Crooks (inventor of Crooks’s tube) said “The rare earths
perplex us in our very dreams. They stretch like an unknown see before us, mocking, mystifying, and murmuring strange
revelations and possibilities.”
Moseley decided to face this jungle with his X-ray method. He obtained samples from various scientists including Crooks. He
measured the L rays of these elements, but encountered considerable trouble because most of them were “terrible mixtures.”
In May 1914, Georges Urbain from the University of Paris, who had worked on rare earths for many years, came to Oxford to
visit Moseley. He wanted to examine the X-ray spectrum of celtium that he thought he had discovered as a new element.
Urbain also brought several other elements. He handed Moseley an ore containing an unknown number of the rare earths
mixed together in minute amounts and said“Tell me what elements are present”.
After careful measurements with his X-ray spectrometer for a week, Moseley gave Urbain a complete story of the rare
earths in Urbain’s samples. “Erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium (Z = 68, 69, 70 and 71, respectively) were present, but
the element corresponding to No. 61 was absent.” Urbain was astonished by the speed and reliability of Moseley’s analysis, but
annoyed that there was no place for celtium.
Moseley’s work showed that the lanthanide series of rare-earth elements, i.e., lanthanum through lutetium inclusive
(Z = 57 to 71), must have 15 members ─ no more and no less.
A quick look at the modern Periodic Table of the Elements reveals exactly this fact.
Discovery of the three elements
1. The element with the atomic number 75 has been discovered in 1925 by Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke and Otto Berg
in Germany by using Moseley’s methods. It has been named Rhenium (Re).
2. The element with the atomic number 43 has been discovered in 1937 by Carlo Perrier ve Emilio Segrè in Italy. It
has been named Technetium (Tc). This is the first artificially obtained radioactive element. Today, this is the widely
used radioactive element in nuclear medicine.
3. The element with the atomic number 61 has been discovered in 1945 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA by
Jacob A. Marinsky, Lawrence E. Glendenin and Charles D. Coryell. It has been named Promethium (Pm).
4. The element with the atomic number 72 has been discovered in 1923 in Niels Bohr’s laboratory by Georg von
Hevesy and Dirk Coster. It has been named Hafnium (Hf).
In his short life, Moseley published eight papers. His last work led to great advances in Physics and Chemistry. Other
scientists, who made very important discoveries during the same time period, were awarded with the Nobel Price.
Many of Moseley’s colleagues, who were familiar with his extraordinary work, stated that, if he had lived, Moseley
would have received the Nobel Prize in a few years.
In 1937, Prof. Richard Hamer from the Pittsburgh University proposed that the element 43, of whose imminent
discovery he had heard inklings, be called “Moseleyum.” He said ” a name, better and more international in
character like true science itself than a latinized name of the discoverer’s own kingdom or republic .”
Unfortunately, this proposal has been rejected.
World War I starts
Moseley intended to look for an M series, he told Darwin in February 1914. But, this had to wait for a while.
Meanwhile, he received a subsidy and planned to attend the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science in Australia. Moseley started his journey on June 12, 1914, which took about six weeks. His mother
accompanied him. At the time of Moseley’s departure, the political tension was building in Europe and the threats of
war were everywhere. While Moseley was on the high sea, Austrian Prinz Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were
killed in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist. Within a month, Austria declared war on Serbia, who appealed to her ally
Russia. France and Russia ordered general mobilization. On 2 August, German troops crossed into France and invaded
Luxemburg. Following day, Germany declared war on France and sent troops to Belgium. Midnight of the same day,
Britain entered the war against Germany.
Having heard the declaration of war in Europe, Moseley decided to enlist himself in the military. He left Australia on
29 August. On his return, Moseley went to Manchester to say good-by to his friends. Rutherford and his mother tried
to unsuccessfully dissuade him from enlisting for combat duty. They said he would be better off serving his country’s
war effort behind the front lines.
A friend said “Moseley would be very much incensed.”
Another friend expressed his feeling in a quite interesting way:
“The use of such a man as subaltern is economically equivalent to using Lusitania to carry a pound of butter from
Rumsgate to Margate.”
Moseley joins the military
Moseley did not budge and decided to enlist himself in the Royal Engineers. They
declined and said “We need engineers, not physicists.” Nevertheless, he then pulled
“private strings” and joined as a Second Lieutenant. This unit was a part of the New
Regular Army that had been created by Lord Kitchener, who was the Secretary of
State for War, by sending out a call for 100,000 volunteers. Later, Moseley decided
to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and labored as hard to leave the Engineers as
he had to enter them. However, his efforts did not work this time and he remained
with the Kitchener’s New Army. In February 1915, Moseley’s unit was attached to
the 13th Infantry Division. He became responsible for the communications of the
38th Brigade. He wrote to Rutherford “....quite an interesting little job, since I and
my 26 men will be quite on our own as soon as we get the the front.” He thought they
would go to France and fight against Germans.
Lord Kitchener
At the beginning of April 1915, General Sir Ian Hamilton was assembling an army for the invasion
of the Gallipoli peninsula. Several months after invasion, however, Hamilton requested fresh troops
because of the stalemate in Gallipoli following intense battles. The British Government agreed and
ordered 10., 11. and 13. Divisions of the New Army, including Moseley’s 13th Division to the East.
Two more divisions were added at the request of First Lord of Admiralty Winston Churchill.
The Gallipoli invasion is widely believed to be the brainchild of Churchill.
This order would take Moseley to Gallipoli rather than to France as he had first thought.
General Ian Hamilton
Winston Churchill
Ottoman Empire enters the war
Before the war was declared, two German battleships Goeben and Breslau were in the Adriatic Sea. In the beginning of August
1914, they moved south. The British and French fleets were observing them and thought the ships would go west and then to
Germany. On 4 August, however, captain Souchon received the order: “We made a pact with the Ottoman Government.
Immediately move to Constantinople.” On 10 August, they arrived at the straits of Dardanelles. They were taken in and later
arrived in Istanbul. The Ottoman Government declared that they had bought the ships. In 29 October, the ships sailed to the
Black Sea and bombarded four Russian ports. Subsequently, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Britain and France
followed and declared war as well.
Goeben (Yavuz)
Admiral Wilhelm Souchon
(1864-1946)
Breslau (Midilli)
The Aim of the Allies’ attack on the Gallipoli Peninsula
“For the people of modern Turkey, the
Battle of Çanakkale, as they call the
Turkish struggle to retain control of
the Gallipoli peninsula and the Straits
of the Dardanelles, the Çanakkale
Boğazi, in 1915, was one of the
defining moments in their history. Two
powerful European powers, Britain and
France, tried to wrest that control
from Turkey.
They had even promised, if successful
in their efforts to defeat Turkey, to
give the capital, Constantinople, and
the Straits of the Bosphorus to the
Russian Empire.”
www.anzacsite.gov.au
Naval attack on 18 March 1915
Landings on 25 April and 6-7 August 1915
A-Beach
B,C-Beach
British Landings
6-7 August 1915
Z-Beach
ANZAC
Landings
25 April 1915
British
Landings
25 April 1915
Y-Beach
X-Beach
W-Beach
V-Beach
Kumkale
French
Landings
S-Beach
Going to the front
In late June, Moseley’s 13th Division arrived in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote to his mother: “Alexandria is full of
heat flies, native troops and Australians.” After a week in Egypt, they sailed to the Dardanelles.
Meanwhile, British casualties were mounting. Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandson was killed in April. William
H. Bragg’s second son, Robert lost his life at Gallipoli. Arthur Schuster’s son was wounded there. Charles R. Martin
of the Glasgow University died at Gallipoli. An Oxford scholar, Edward G. Romanes also died there.
Moseley was aware of the hard fighting at Gallipoli. The news reminded him of his mortality.
On 27 June 1915, while on his way to the Dardanelles, Moseley sat down to write a soldier’s will. It was done in ink
on a scrap paper about two by four inches.
Soldier’s will
“This is the last will and testament of me Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley Second Lieutenant Royal Engineers
now on active service with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. I give and bequeath all my estate
real and personal and my reversionary interests therein to the Royal Society of London to be applied to the
furtherance of experimental research in pathology, physics, physiology, chemistry or other branches of
science, but not in pure mathematics, astronomy or any branch of science which aims merely at describing,
cataloguing, or systematising. Made on the twenty seventh of June, 1915 by me Henry G. J. Moseley”
Landing at Helles (Seddülbahir)
Moseley reached Alexandria on 27 June. After a week in Egypt, his 38th
Brigade landed at Helles (Seddülbahir) to gain some combat experience
before going to the front lines.
Some quotes from his letters to his mother:
“The centipedes eight inches long and very fat, look terrifying, but so far no
scorpions. I have 1/2 a tent to sleep, a great luxury since almost everyone is
bivouaced.” (4 July)
“The one real interest in life is the flies, no mosquitos, but flies by day and
flies by night, flies in the water, flies in the food.” (12 July)
“We moved yesterday (13 July 1915) to a place where the road is worse than
the flies. Sand in booths clothes mouth eyes hair. Sand in the food and the
water and the air.” (July 14)
His last letter to his mother on 4 August.
“On the move again as usual. Send a little tiny table of soap every week. Have
bought a razor but want another (mine stolen by a soldier)...... I badly want a
a green mosquito net for my head. The flies make sleep impossible between
sunrise and sunset without some protection...... I hear we are to have a water
ration of a gallon all told..... Not really enough as washing is luckily a luxury
which one easily goes without.”
After three weeks at Helles, Moseley’s brigade proceeded to the harbor of
Mudros, on the island of Lemnos, a staging area just seventy miles from
Gallipoli. There, Moseley spent a few pleasant days, swimming, hiking, and
collecting fresh eggs and fruits. He had no idea of the proposterous plan
that the generals had in store for him and his comrades.
Attack on Chunuk Bair (Conkbayırı)
8-10 August
Moseley and his 38th Brigade left Mudros and landed at ANZAC on
4 August, according to the book “Gallipoli II” by General AspinallOglander. He also states that Moseley had not landed at Suvla bay
as Rutherford had claimed in one of his writings about Moseley.
The plan for Moseley’s 38th Brigade commanded by General Antony
H. Baldwin was to attack the northern portion of Chunuk Bair
(Conkbayırı) in two columns. It was a very difficult uphill battle and
the attack was carried out by tired man. In the early morning of 9
August, the brigade finally reached a plateau just 300 meters below
Chunuk Bair, which was called “The Farm (Ağıl).” But the attack
failed. The 38th Brigade managed to hold the Farm for the 9th of
August, but never reached Chunuk Bair. The soldiers had no idea
what would happen to them in the next 24 hours.
Chunuk Bair on 8-9 August
On 8 August, the southern part of Chunuk bair was occupied by the
New Zealand troops. Having reached the Farm plateau, Baldwin’s
soldiers came under an intense fire from the Turkish soldiers on
Chunuk Bair.
A lieutenant, who had survived the attack, later wrote:
“I had never thought or heard there could be such a hell. I cannot
explain it. I had heard the expression “sea of bullets.” Now I know
what it means. We had to climb 400 yards uphill. But there was
already day light.”
The Farm
Turkish attack on 10 August
Having routed the British soldiers on 9 August as they advanced across the Suvla plain, Colonel
Mustafa Kemal, the commander of the 19th Division, rode up to Chunuk Bair, where the Turkish
forces were faltering. He was convinced that the time had come for an all-out counter-attack.
Overnight, he gathered four regiments to attack on the early morning of 10 August. At 4:30,
he ordered his men forward in a bayonet charge. Later, he wrote in his memoirs:
“The blanket of night had lifted. Now was the hour for the attack. It was nearly 4.30. After a
few minutes, it would become quite light and the enemy would be able to see our troops……”
He addressed his men: “Soldiers! There is no doubt that we can defeat the enemy opposing us.
But don’t hurry, let me go in front first. When you see the wave of my whip, all of you rush
forward together.”
Then he went to a point forward of the assault line, and raised his whip and gave the signal for
the attack. During the attack, his was hit by a shrapnel on the right side of his chest, but his
watch saved him.
Moseley gets shot
Turkish soldiers poured over Chunuk Bair. A part of them reached the Farm and smashed into
Baldwin’s 38th Brigade. A British soldier, who survived the attack, later described what had
happened:
“They came in a big mass and were shoulder to shoulder. In some places, four to eight soldiers
were behind one another. Turks came rushing into our midst. A terrible body-to-body fight ensued
with knifes, rocks and teeth.”
Moseley was in the middle of this fight with his 26 soldiers. He desperately tried get help and reinforcements by
telephoning the headquarters.
Moseley got shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet and died instantly.
The commander of the 38th Brigade, General Baldwin, the brigade’s major and many other officers were among
those about one-thousand British Empire soldiers killed. Many Turkish soldiers were also killed by machine gun fire
and by bombardments from the British war ships. The Chunuk Bair attack ended in a complete rout for the British
Empire soldiers. The Turks had regained Chunuk Bair and no British Empire soldier ever again reached this summit.
Moseley had written his mother many times. She received no letters from him about two months after he arrived
at Gallipoli. In the end, she received that terrible letter from one of Moseley’s officer friends:
“Your son died as a hero. He carried out his duties until the end. He was shot in the head and died instantly. The
Brigade lost a very talented officer and an excellent friend. For him, his work always came first and he paid great
attention to the details.”
Shock in the world of science
Rutherford was deeply shocked when the news reached him in Manchester. He wrote a notice of
Moseley’s death to Science and said:
“Moseley was one of the best of the young people I ever had, and his death is a severe loss to science.”
Before another month had passed, Rutherford was still deeply affected and wrote a letter to Nature:
”It is a national tragedy that our military organization at the start was so inelastic as to be unable, with a few exception,
to utilize the offers of of services of our scientific men except as combatants on the firing line. The loss of this young
man on the battlefield is striking example of the misuse of scientific talent.”
This indictment referred to many soldiers besides Moseley. The lesson of this mistake was learned to some extent
during World War II, when somewhat more care and jugdment were taken by the British military organization to assign
scientists to behind-the-lines work.
Comments from the world of science
When he heard of Moseley’s death, the American physicist and Nobel Laureate Robert A. Millikan
wrote in public eulogy:
"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 other result than the
snuffing out of this young life, that alone would make it one of the most hideous and most
irreparable crimes in history."
Nobel Loreate Louis de Broglie said:
“Moseley’s law was one of the greatest advances yet made in natural philosophy.”
Nobel Laureate Niels Bohr in 1962:
"You see actually the Rutherford work [the nuclear atom] was not taken seriously. We cannot understand today, but it
was not taken seriously at all. There was no mention of it any place. The great change came from Moseley."
Biochemist and science writer Isaac Asimov stated in his ”Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and
Technology” :
“In view of what he might still have accomplished, his death might well have been the most costly single death of the
war to mankind generally.”
His former collaborator Kasimir Fajans at the University of Karlsruhe (Germany) wrote for Die Naturwissenschaften a
moving tribute of this ”extraordinary gifted man whose death will arouse the deepest mourning in wide scientific
circles.”
Georges Urbain of the University of Paris wrote to Rutherford:
”I had been very much surprised when I visited Moseley at Oxford to find such a very young man capable of
accomplishing such a remarkable piece of work. The Law of Moseley confirmed in a few days the conclusions of my
efforts of twenty years of patient work. His law subtituted for Mendeleev’s somewhat romantic classification a
complete scientific accuracy.”
After the war
Because of the horrible intensity of the battles in Gallipoli, most dead soldiers could not be buried. After the war in 1919,
the British returned to the peninsula and found battle fields covered with bones of soldiers. They built cemeteries and
buried them. However, most soldiers could not be identified. A cemetery was also built on the Farm plateau where Moseley
lost his life. Bones of the 652 soldiers from General Baldwin’s 38th Brigade were buried there. It is very likely that
Moseley is one of those 652 soldiers. Today, there are only seven grave stones with the names of soldiers believed to be
buried in the Farm cemetery. 645 soldiers are unidentified.
The Farm
The Farm
The Farm as seen from Chunuk Bair (Conkbayırı)
Farm cemetery
Helles Memorial
Helles Memorial was erected by Britain at Seddülbahir in
memory of about 19,000 fallen British soldiers. Their
names can be found carved in stone around the memorial.
One of those is the name of
Lieutenant Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley
Royal Engineers
Henry Moseley lies in one of the most
sacred places on Turkish Land.
Memorial of ANZAC Cove with Atatürk’s words about the allied soldiers
who fell at the Gallipoli battle
“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly
country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to
us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You, the mothers, who sent their sons
from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in
peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1934
Scientific sources
Henry G. J. Moseley and Charles G. Darwin, The Reflexion of the X-Rays, Phil. Mag. 26, 210-232, 1913.
Henry G. J. Moseley, The High-Frequency Spectra of the Elements, Phil. Mag. 26, 1024-1034, 1913.
Henry G. J. Moseley, The High-Frequency Spectra of the Elements, Part II, Phil. Mag. 27, 703-713, 1914.
Niels Bohr, On the Quantum Theory of Radiation and the Structure of the Atom, Phil. Mag. 30, 394-415, 1915.
John L. Heilbron, The Work of H. G. J. Moseley, Isis 57, 336-364, 1966.
John L. Heilbron, H. G. J. Moseley: The Life and Letters of an English Physicist, 1887-1915. University of California
Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, 1974.
John L. Heilbron, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. IX, C. C. Gillispie, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1974.
John L. Heilbron, Historical Studies in the Theory of Atomic Structure, Arno Press, New York, 1981.
Bernard Jaffe, Moseley and the Numbering of the Elements, Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York, 1971.
Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company,
Inc., New York, 1972.
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1986.
M. A. B. Whitaker, The Bohr-Moseley Synthesis and a Simple Model for Atomic X-Ray Energies, Eur. J. Phys. 20, 213220, 1999.
Eric R. Scerri, The Periodic Table, Its Story and Significance, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007.
Historical sources
Lord Kinross, Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey, Quill, William Morrow, New York, 1964.
C. E. W. Bean, The Story of Anzac: From 4 May, 1915, to the Evacuation of the Gallipoli Peninsula (The Official History of
Australia in the War of 1914-1918, Volume 2), University of Queensland Press, 1981.
Mustafa Kemal, Anafartalar Muharebatı’na Ait Tarihçe, Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, Ankara, 1990.
Sevket Süreyya Aydemir, Tek Adam, Mustafa Kemal, 1. Cilt, Remzi Kitapevi, İstanbul, 1994.
Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli, Ballantine Books, New York, 1996.
Liman von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey, The Battery Press, Inc., Nashville, 2000.
Dan van der Vat, The Ship That Changed The World, The Escape of the Goeben to the Dardanelles in 1914, Birlinn Limited,
Edinburgh, 2000.
Richard Reid, A “Duty Clear Before Us”, Commonwealth Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Canberra, Australia, 2000.
Nigel Steel and Peter Hart, Defeat at Gallipoli, Pan Books, London, 2002.
Tonie and Valmai Holt, Major & Mrs. Holt’s Battlefield Guide to Gallipoli, Leo Cooper, Barnsley, 2002.
Erol Mütercimler, Gelibolu 1915, Alfa Yayınları, İstanbul, 2005.
Sermet Atacanlı, Atatürk ve Çanakkale’nin Komutanları, MB Yayınevi, İstanbul, 2007.
Dan van der Vat, The Dardanelles Disaster. Winston Churchill’s Greatest Failure, Duckworth Overlook, Peter Mayer
Publishers, Inc., London & New York, 2009.
Haircut
Turkish haircut
British haircut
Thank you
miral@nist.gov
http://www.nist.gov/mml/biochemical/dna/miral_dizdar.cfm