Cavendish Professor of Physics the university regulations which allowed students who had not studied at Cambridge to receive a B.A. by submitting a thesis which was judged "of distinction as a record of original research." Among the students attracted by this change was future Cavendish Professor Ernest Rutherford. Whilst Thomson was Cavendish Professor, he discovered the electron and the existence of isotopes, and also fostered an atmosphere of friendliness and mutual helpfulness. Rutherford returned to Cambridge in 1918, and spent the last 19 years of his life there. This was around the time of the change from classical to modern physics, and Rutherford was
Department of Physics, Lund University was conducted under the faculty of philosophy. In addition, during its first 150 years the University had no professorship in pure physics, so the teachings was instead given by professors in mathematics. There were however a course in experimental physics from the early 18th century, but that course was given by a professor in theoretical medicine; Kilian Stobæus was appointed as the first professor in 1728. It wasn't until the early 19th century that the physics professorship split from the mathematics, but then the professorship was shared with the astronomy. The University received its first full professor in physics in