Waiting for a traffic light - The making of the bomb

[MARCH 15, 2003] - History has many points of view, but some come to dominate. A view of Eureka Moments of mankind can be obscured if you wade exclusively in the main stream.

Those that discovered the atom, then those that mucked about in the atomic milieu, and finally those who figured out how the atom’s traits could be repurposed for technological purposes all tend to be viewed from the view of the great historical event of the first atomic bomb, rather than the great scientific events of the discovery of radioactivity or the splitting of the atom.

The distortion can become profound. A Rutherford can become a bumbler. Here’s an example. The entry in Bartlett’s for the father of atomic physics concerns Rutherford’s famous miscalculation of the possibility of harnessing atomic power [“We cannot control atomic energy to an extent which would be of any value commercially, and I believe we are not likely ever to be able to do so.”-1933]. Of course he may not have been so wrong at all, thought not specifically for the reasons he had in mind in 1933.

Leo Szilard’s ponders Rutherford’s comment, while waiting for a traffic light on a 1930’s day in London, and that sets Richard Rhodes’ The Making of the Atomic Bomb in motion. Szilard has something of a walk-on role in the history of the development of the bomb, but it is a vital one. Together with Teller and Wigner he approached Einstein with the idea of writing US President Franklin Roosevelt on the notion of an atomic bomb.

Szilard was creative – a theoretical physicist. Wise enough to know Einstein’s letter would get attention. Among his interests was the notion of space travel, and an international union of scientists. Szilard had misgiving about Rutherford’s doubts of the atom’s malleability to commerce. He thought while he walked, and was able to recall the traffic light, and the insight – that Rutherford was overlooking some important details (neurton behaviors) – years later.

An earlier incident in Szilard’s life, as described by Rhodes, shows how science sometimes happens. It is noodling. Some time it is loafing. And may be a wonder any really innovative work gets done at all these days, given the paucity of noodling or loafing.

The Hungarian, after serving in World War I, began his formal physics studies in Berlin under Max von Laue in 1921. He was given an obscure problem in relatively theory to solve, and made no headway for six months. As Christmas arrived, he thought it was best ‘to loaf.’ To think “whatever comes to my mind.”

At this point he begins to conjure and then in three weeks solves a problem in thermodynamics: That of how to extend phenomenological thermodynamics to fluctuation phenomena; to treat thermodynamic equilibrium in an actually dynamic, rather than static, way.

Rutherford, in his turn, is of course a scientist of surpassing interest. His methods, which called for creative thought and brilliantly simple hands-on experimentation, are a text book in imaginative endeavor. He is every bit as Szilard a character of great moment in Rhodes’ book. But we will leave that for another day, as we plow ahead on The Making of the Atomic Bomb, an effort likely to take up 2003.

Last update: 4/12/2003; 11:47:37 AM.