The Basis of Everything: Rutherford, Oliphant and the Coming of the Atomic Bomb
This is the story of how the partnership of two scientists—Ernest Rutherford, the son of a New Zealand farmer, and Mark Oliphant, a peace-loving vegetarian from a tiny Australian hill village—would lead to the development of atomic power and nuclear weapons. The book is a dual biography of the two. We learn how, as a student, Oliphant was impressed by hearing Rutherford lecture in 1925 on how his research was transforming the contemporary understanding of the atom and its structure. This scene is described vividly, though with some artistic licence: ‘The stories that Rutherford told carried his hushed audience from incredulity to unshakeable faith.’ The two men later collaborated at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, working on the splitting of the atom. The triumphs and tragedies of the two physicists’ lives are well depicted, including the deaths of children, and the strange affair of Rutherford’s final illness—delays in getting him medical attention occurred, due to perceived difficulties in finding a doctor of the right status to attend a Peer of the Realm and Nobel laureate.
Following on from Rutherford’s death, Oliphant moved to the University of Birmingham, then spent a long period working on the Manhattan Project, culminating in the bombs being dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war he returned to Australia, tempted by promised research funding that never fully materialised. He died as recently as 2000.
This is a well-told story, recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of science, though it has to be said that the author provides more ‘history’ than he does ‘science’. A basic understanding of nuclear physics and a willingness to occasionally Google certain physical concepts will greatly enhance comprehension.
