Peter Littlewood optical fibers and devices, and new materials for particle detectors. Peter Littlewood Peter Littlewood (born 18 May 1955) is a British physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago. He was the 13th Director of Argonne National Laboratory. He previously headed the Cavendish Laboratory as well as the Theory of Condensed Matter group and the Theoretical Physics Research department at Bell Laboratories. He gained a first-class degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge in 1976, and was then awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two years. He returned to
Cavendish Professor of Physics would cost £6,300. The then chancellor of the university, William Cavendish met that cost privately 18 months later, and named the department in honor of his relative, the 18th century natural philosopher Henry Cavendish. The first Cavendish Professor was the then relatively obscure James Clerk Maxwell, who had yet to complete the work that would make him the most renowned physicist of the nineteenth century. His appointment was announced on 8 March 1871, and despite initial disappointment at his being offered the place, his inaugural lecture was looked forward to by his likely students as well as his future colleagues.