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Article ID: CBB001320777

Joseph Rotblat's Archive: Some Anomalies and Difficulties (2011)

History of Physics Newsletter
Volume: 43, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 5

Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: http://www.aip.org/history/newsletter/summer2011/rotblat_archive.html
Language: English

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Introduction Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat was a distinguished scientist who made significant contributions to nuclear physics, worked on the development of the atomic bomb (he was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project where these weapons of mass destruction were being developed) and was suspected of being a soviet spy. Rotblat was appalled when nuclear weapons were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although he did work, albeit for a short time, on their development and in his view with little impact. Instead he dedicated himself to the medical uses of nuclear physics and radiation, taking up the post of Professor of Physics (as applied to medicine) at St. Bartholomew's Medical College and made major contributions to this field, becoming one of the world's leading researchers into the biological effects of radiation. Rotblat was to develop the view that scientists were responsible for the consequences of their work and scientific research should be for the benefit of humanity, a driving principle in his life and work being that scientists cannot dissociate themselves from the consequences of their work, however difficult to predict. Joseph Rotblat worked at the University of Warsaw, discovering inelastic neutron scattering. He was invited in 1939 to work at Liverpool University with James Chadwick. Towards the end of 1939 Rotblat began experiments in Liverpool which demonstrated that the nuclear bomb was feasible. At the beginning of 1944 Rotblat joined the Chadwick group at Los Alamos, New Mexico to work on the Manhattan Project, which was developing the atomic bomb. At the end of 1944 he resigned and returned to England.1 In this paper I describe some new findings that will lead to a reappraisal of some aspects of his life and work. This has become possible as a consequence of funding from The Friends of The Center For The History of Physics at AIP, allowing me to consult Rotblat's Archive that is now becoming available, housed in the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, University of Cambridge. Many insights and anomalies have already been uncovered and in this short summary I describe some of the findings, to date.

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