The British World War II atomic effort was named Tube Alloys and it relied heavily on a Technical Committee of just over half a dozen scientists. John Cockcroft was the focus of attention on January 29, 1946, when the 28th meeting of the Technical Committee was held, because Cockcroft was
An unusual 1957 book I came across was by Leonard Bertin. I think he was a journalist. Hardly anyone cites this book, the British nuclear pioneers only mention it once or twice in correspondence, there’s a certain clumsiness about it … yet he extracts some lovely interviews. In particular he
For a time the United Kingdom outstripped even the United States with its nuclear reactor program, even though it began from scratch three years later and with few resources. The British effort was a joint one between the scientists at Harwell—by the 1950s one of the premier nuclear laboratories of
I’ve quoted Frank Close before but here is an evocative picture of Harwell, one of the most significant nuclear laboratories established globally: After the end of the war, in 1946, this site was taken over by “the Atomic,” as Harwell Laboratory was affectionately known. The Atomic had an air of
One issue of relevance when considering the early development of reactors by the Soviet Union is the extent to which it was aided by atomic espionage. The tale of Klaus Fuchs is familiar and he certainly helped Soviet bomb development, but I could find no solid evidence that he assisted
When the co-head of the postwar UK atomic effort, Christopher Hinton, died in 1983, aged 82, one of his eulogies came from an unusual source. Margaret Gowing, the official historian of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (with various names throughout its history), penned a remarkable 23-page eulogy. She was
One can never get enough snapshots of Enrico Fermi, the 1942 “developer” of the first reactor and, some would say, the last great combined theoretical and experimental physicist. Listen to Stuart McLain, Oak Ridge physicist, from his charming autobiography Me!: Or Don’t Do It My Way (provided with great generosity
I’m not sure what kinds of airplanes flew from Washington, D.C. to Florida in 1957 but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have been quiet and comfortable. I enjoyed noticing how hard one of the reactor developers, Walter Zinn, worked and traveled after he left government employment to run his own
The British archival goldmine of Christopher Hinton’s diaries (not all of which can be viewed) offers a look at some of the quirks of that mercurial, impressive man. On January 1 each year he would grab the newspaper (not sure which one but probably The Times) and check the British
The day before Christmas in 1956, Nazir Ahmad, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission met with England’s John Cockcroft (I’m not sure where, either in London or Harwell). Cockcroft was famously internationalist and forever battling isolationist Christopher Hinton, but even Cockcroft had to tread warily in this meeting, for