Henry Cavendish prefiguring thermodynamics. Theoretical physicist Dietrich Belitz concluded that in this work Cavendish "got the nature of heat essentially right." As Cavendish performed his famous density of the Earth experiment in an outbuilding in the garden of his Clapham Common estate, his neighbours would point out the building and tell their children that it was where the world was weighed. In honour of Henry Cavendish's achievements and due to an endowment granted by Henry's relative William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, the University of Cambridge's physics laboratory was named the Cavendish Laboratory by James Clerk Maxwell, the first Cavendish Professor of
University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy The University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy is the physics department of the University of Edinburgh. The school was formed in 1993 by a merger of the Department of Physics - called the Department of Natural Philosophy until the late 1960s - and the Department of Astronomy, both at the University of Edinburgh. The school is part of the University's College of Science and Engineering. Institutions and research groups based within the school include: The school is housed in the James Clerk Maxwell Building on the University's King's Buildings campus.