Wilson was born in Glencorse, Scotland, on February 14, 1869. However, his family moved to Manchester in 1873 when his father died. Wilson entered Owens College in Manchester at the age of fifteen and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in biology three years later. He then enrolled at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and earned his doctorate in physics in 1892.

An important event in Wilson's life occurred in 1894. He spent a few weeks at the observatory on top of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain. Wilson was fascinated by the process of cloud formation that he observed every day at the observatory. He decided to find ways of imitating the process in the laboratory.

Wilson's method was to allow moist air within a glass container to expand quickly. As the air expanded, it became cooler and tiny droplets of moisture condensed as artificial clouds. Wilson observed that the...