Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett, English physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1897)

Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett was a British physicist and life peer who received the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1925, he was the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another. He also made major contributions to the Allied war effort in World War II, advising on military strategy and developing operational research.

The Nobel Prize in Physics is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901, the others being the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is traditionally the first award presented in the Nobel Prize ceremony.