Share
twitterlinkedinfacebook
Image 1 of 1
BNPS_NobelPrizeAston_04.jpg
BNPS.co.uk (01202 558833)<br />
Pic: Bonhams/BNPS<br />
<br />
Aston (Back, left) with fellow boffins at Cambridge including Ernest Rutherford.<br />
<br />
British Nobel prize that led to the Atomic bomb.<br />
<br />
The Nobel Prize awarded to a British chemist Francis William Aston for a scientific breakthrough that laid the groundwork for the nuclear age has emerged for sale for a staggering £400,000.<br />
<br />
The 23-carat gold medal was handed to Aston in 1922 upon his discovery of isotopes - atoms of an element with different numbers of neutrons.<br />
<br />
Aston's success was in part due to his creation of the 'mass spectograph' - a piece of apparatus that measured atoms, molecules and ions and sorted them by their mass - said to be one of the most important inventions of the 20th century.<br />
<br />
His groundbreaking work is today used in carbon dating, forensics, drug testing in sport, managing supply of anaesthetic and finding environmental toxins in food and water supplies.<br />
<br />
Aston's Nobel Prize is now being sold among an archive of eight other medals, photographs and personal letters at London auction house Bonhams.