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 Laboratory of Devonshire had given to Maxwell, as head of the laboratory, the manuscripts of Henry Cavendish's unpublished "Electrical Works". The editing and publishing of these was Maxwell's main scientific work while he was at the laboratory. Cavendish's work aroused Maxwell's intense admiration and he decided to call the Laboratory (formerly known as the Devonshire Laboratory) the Cavendish Laboratory and thus to commemorate both the Duke and Henry Cavendish. Physical Chemistry (originally the department of Colloid Science led by Eric Rideal) had left the old Cavendish site, subsequently locating as the Department of Physical Chemistry (under RG Norrish) in the then