Blue plaques in Scotland
Commemorative plaques erected by the IOP in Scotland to celebrate physicists who lived or worked nearby.
There are currently blue plaques for:
Peter Ware Higgs (1929-2024)
Theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate for physics
Wrote the papers which proposed the Higgs boson in 1964
Unveiled by Professor Peter Higgs on 3 March 2015 in Roxburgh Street, Edinburgh
Alexander Wilson FRSE (1714-1786)
1st Scottish Astronomy Chair (Glasgow 1760-1786)
Type founding entrepreneur and glass instrument maker. Famed for sunspot structure observations and promotion of universal gravity controlling stellar motion
Unveiled by Professor John C Brown, FInst P, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland at the University of Glasgow Acre Road Observatory on 28 March 2017
Dr Thomas David Anderson (1853-1932)
Discovered two bright novae: Nova Aurigae 1891 and Nova Persei 1901, from his house at 21 East Claremont Street, Edinburgh
Unveiled by Professor John C Brown, FInst P, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland on 8 October 2014
Thomas Henderson FRS, FRSE, FRAS (1798-1844)
1st Astronomer Royal for Scotland
First measurement of distance to Alpha Centauri, one of the nearest stars
Location: 1 Hillside Crescent, Edinburgh
Unveiled by Professor John C Brown, FInst P, 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland on 8 October 2014
Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953)
Weather forecasting pioneer
Location: Eskdalemuir Observatory, Dumfries and Galloway
Unveiled by Paul Hardaker, IOP and Rob Varley, Met Office on 1 August 2013
Charles Thomson Rees (CTR) Wilson, CH, Nobel Laureate (1869-1959)
Location: Crosshouse Farm on a specially built cairn at Flotterstone in the Pentland Hills, south of Edinburgh, a short distance from his birthplace
Unveiled: 10 April 1996 jointly by Dr Lesley Glasser (Chairman of the IOP's Scottish branch), and a vice-president of the Royal Meteorological Society
William Thomson, Baron Kelvin of Largs (1824-1907)
Location: 11 Professors' Square, University of Glasgow
Professor Sir George Paget Thomson, FRS, Nobel Laureate (1892-1975)
Location: Marischal College, Aberdeen City Centre
Unveiled by Professor Brian Cox, OBE, on 6 September 2012