Michael Woolfson Michael Woolfson Michael Mark Woolfson (born 9 January 1927) is a British physicist and planetary scientist. His research interests lie in the fields of x-ray crystallography, biophysics and the formation of stars and planets. He was educated at Jesus College, Oxford and received his PhD from UMIST. He was a research assistant at UMIST 1950-52 and at Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 1952-54. He was an ICI Fellow, University of Cambridge, 1954-55. At UMIST he was a lecturer, 1955–61, and a Reader, 1961-65. He was Professor of Theoretical Physics, 1965-94 University of York and head of the Department of Physics,
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Laboratory of Devonshire had given to Maxwell, as head of the laboratory, the manuscripts of Henry Cavendish's unpublished "Electrical Works".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