But Kapitsa was able to change Rutherford's mind with his innovative approach to research and his engineering background. His first experiments at the Cavendish Laboratory were on magnetic deflection of alpha and beta particles emitted by radioactive nuclei. He subsequently became involved in a study of high-density, temporary magnetic fields. Kapitsa developed an electric battery that discharged into a small copper magnetic coil, producing magnetic fields seven times stronger than any other previous mechanism had produced. These strong magnetic fields were the result of the short duration of the electric charges, which only lasted about 0.01 second each. This led Kapitsa to state that he was the world's highest paid physicist if his work were measured by the hour.
In 1923 Kapitsa received his doctorate from Cambridge University and won the James Clerk Maxwell fellowship, the first of his many awards. The following year he became the assistant director of magnetic research at Cavendish and shortly thereafter was made a fellow at Trinity College. Kapitsa seemed to feel at home in Cambridge and adopted many English habits--he rode a motor cycle, smoked a pipe, and wore tweeds.
In his work on high-density magnetic fields, Kapitsa devised ways of measuring how these fields affected the temperatures and properties of metals.
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