Appleton, Sir Edward Victor (1892-1965), a British physicist, won the 1947 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the Appleton layer in the ionosphere. This layer of free electrons, 143 miles (230 kilometers) high, reflects radio waves back to earth. Appleton was born on Sept. 6, 1892, in Bradford, England. During World War II (1939-1945), he served in the United Kingdom's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1949, he became the principal and vice chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. He died on April 21, 1965. See also Ionosphere.