ArchiveMarch 2021

Christopher Hinton was the engineering overlord of Britain’s huge world-leading push into power reactors from the early 1950s. He was a towering personality. Somehow he managed to combine blistering honesty (he battled bureaucrats all his life) with an anxious need to preserve a hallowed reputation. A number of years ago, I came across a classic invited speech he made in 1954, in which he. . .

I’ve been quiet lately on this blog. Why? Because I’ve been wrestling with all the various inventive reactor design strands over the two-plus decades from the first reactor in 1942, and during that time it was never clear how much should live onward in my book and how much I should spit out here. But now I’m gaining clarity (and let me tell you, reactor design is one interesting. . .