Arthur James Cochran Wilson, FRS[1] (28 November 1914 – 1 July 1995) was a Canadian-British crystallographer known for his work on the statistical aspects of X-ray crystallography.
He then proceeded to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his first PhD in 1938 on the anomalous thermal behaviour of the ferro-electric Rochelle salt.
There he made accurate measurements of the thermal expansion of aluminium and lead and gained a second PhD in 1942, acquiring a lifelong interest in X-ray crystallography in the process.
His interest was particularly stimulated by a research paper he was asked to review on deriving absolute from relative intensities of X-ray diffraction data which made him aware of the analytic power of crystallographic statistics.
In 1965 he was appointed professor of crystallography in the Department of Physics at University of Birmingham, where he continued to pursue his research interests and editorial activities.