A Physicist Who Enjoys It Rudolph Peierls What Little I Remember

Nature Vol. 280 19 July 1979 257 reviews• A physicist who enjoys it Rudolph Peierls What Little I Remember. By Otto R. Frisch. many. The written characterisations of "non-Aryan", and there followed the Pp.219. (Cambridge University Press: people, which, in his preface, he compares typical odyssey of a displaced academic of Cambridge, 1979.) £9.50 with the pencil sketches, also vary very the time. A year at Birkbeck College in much in depth. Niels Bohr and Lise London under Blackett gave him the first Meitner come very much alive, as does acquaintance with life in England. This was Mosr of nuclear physics has today become George Placzek, with whom Frisch worked the time when artificial radioactivity was "big science", requiring large and expen much in Copenhagen. But very little discovered, and Frisch made his first sive accelerators, with complex detection emerges of Chadwick, with whom he was venture into nuclear physics: he invented a equipment and computers, used by large closely associated in Liverpool and later in clever device to observe very short-lived teams of research workers. Its senior prac Los Alamos, beyond an account of their activities, and was able to discover new titioners have to spend much of their time first encounter; and of some other colour species of radioactive nuclei. He stayed in and their energy on administration and or ful personalities there are only pale London only a year, and was then invited ganisation. This image of the new scientist shadows. to Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen, where does not fit Otto Robert Frisch at all. His very readable reminiscences are those of an individualist, at his best when working and thinking on this own, or with perhaps one close collaborator. This characteristic comes out very clearly, together with the basic happiness of a man who enjoys what he is doing. Scientists tend to be driven by a variety of motives including, to varying degrees, am bition, a sense of duty to the community, curiosity about nature and its laws, and en joyment in the design and execution of ex periments. All these no doubt have some reality for Frisch, but the pleasure of doing what he does is clearly dominant. Ambition is the least of his concerns. All this goes for his many other interests. Besides being an outstanding experimenter, with a flair for the simple and decisive experiment, he has many other interests and talents. This breadth probab- ly owes much to his background. He grew up in Vienna, in a family belonging to the cultural tradition of early twentieth century Vienna. His aunt, the famous nu- "' clear physicist Lise Meitner, was his mentor ~ in much besides physics. Next to physics his § strongest line is music. He is a pianist of ~ near-professional standard, and his ] hearing has absolute pitch. But here again £ he is less concerned with demonstrating his !!, brilliance at the piano than in the pleasure ~ of making music, and he can enjoy playing ----- with others who may be much below his As a physicist, Frisch studied in the Uni he remained until 1939. level in skill, as long as they share his love versity of Vienna, where he received his This was a period of great excitement in for music and his pleasure in making it. PhD (he does not mention the subject of his nuclear physics. Fermi had started using He also likes drawing, and after every thesis). After a year in a small firm making the newly discovered neutron as a probe for meeting the papers in front of him are scientific instruments he was offered a studying nuclei, and neutron physics covered with portraits or caricatures. Some position in the Physikalisch-Technische became one of the major subjects in many of these are reproduced in the book. They Reichsanstalt in Berlin, and after three laboratories, including Copenhagen. are all recognisable likeness, and some years moved to Hamburg to work under Frisch became involved in this work, or bring out the personality of the subject Otto Stern, the authority on atomic beam iginally because he had a well-running excellently. His drawing is not of the research. That much migration was normal counter suitable for detecting the activities standard of his music or his physics, but his at a time when modern physicists formed a produced by neutron bombardment. He enjoyment in the activity is again evident. close-knit but widely-spread family. describes the way the work was done, Presumably the drawings reproduced in But in 1933, when Hitler came to power, including the preparation of neutron the book are the most successful ones of he had to be dismissed from his post as a sources by mixing radium and beryllium. A © Macmillan Journals Ltd 1979 258 Nature Vol. 280 19 July 1979 particularly exciting moment was Niels Bohr's first pronouncement of the idea of the compound nucleus, as a comment after a seminar talk which highlighted the diffi culties of the then conventional view in accounting for neutron resonances. Then, in 1938, came the discovery by Hahn and Strassmann that radioactive barium was one of the products of the bombardment of uranium with neutrons. Frisch was visiting Lise Meitner in Sweden when she received the news of Hahn's result, and there is a fascinating account of the discussion which finally led them to realise that the uranium nucleus was under going "fission" (a term chosen by Frisch to describe the phenomenon). Before long he was back in Copenhagen and was doing an experiment which verified the suggested explanation. By this time War was imminent, and. Denmark was not a very safe place for a refugee from Hitler, so Frisch moved to Birmingham. He started some experiments relating to the fission problem which was still one of his main interest, but in a department not well equipped for nuclear physics, and with most of its members working on radar, progress was slow. He possibility of separating the uranium about about your health and was glad to continued thinking about the implications isotopes in substantial quantities was really hear that there was nothing seriously wrong and possibilities, including nuclear energy. ruled out. He and Peierls concluded that a with you, mainly the effect of the fright" Bohr had shown that a violent explosion nuclear weapon did not seem to be After the War he became head of the was not possible with natural uranium, but impossible, and wrote a memorandum Nuclear Physics Division of AERE, Frisch started to question whether the which led to an atomic weapons project Harwell, the new atomic energy ----------------~ being started in Britain. From then on most laboratory. According to his account of of his effort was devoted to this project. It this period, he left the running of the divi was an odd situation that he and several sion to his deputy, who enjoyed adminis others working on one of the most secret tration, and continued his individual Blaallie military projects were technically enemy research. Perhaps his diffident description aliens, and he tells of a number of ludicrous exaggerates his lack of application to the consequences of this. It soon emerged that work of running the division, but it is in he could work more usefully in Liverpool, character that he was not at his best in this The structure where Chadwick's laboratory had a small kind of responsibility. cyclotron and was not preoccupied with He had been in Harwell less than two of Matter other War research. He worked there, years when he was offered the Jacksonian through the period of heavy air raids, until Professorship in Cambridge. The book is Robert M. Turnbull 1943, when it was decided to discontinue exceedingly brief about the 25 years he the British project during War time and spent in Cambridge before retiring. He explains in the preface that his memory, A concise introduction to send to the United States all those who could be useful to the American atom like that of many others, is more complete atomic, nuclear and particle bomb work. So Frisch went to Los about earlier events than about the more physics for students in the early Alamos, and he gives a vivid description of recent ones, and that it is embarrassing to part of an undergraduate life and work in this odd secret town. Very write about people with whom one is still in course. Deals with the principal sensibly he was not attached to one of the touch. So the whole period, which includes topics in atomic and nuclear large research groups there, but had a his marriage and the growth of his two roving commission, helping with experi children, gets only a few pages. The story physics and goes on to describe mental troubles wherever appropriate. ends with a description of another in the most recent findings in One of his other accomplishments at Los genious device, a machine for measuring particle physics. Includes a Alamos was to learn driving, and he tells and evaluating bubble-chamber tracks, problems section with answers. the story of his first accident, which which he designed; he is now a partner in brought him a broken rib and other minor the firm manufacturing this commercially. injuries. He does not seem to remember Three chapters of the book, Atoms, 256 pp 88 illustrations another accident which became legendary Nuclei and Research Resumed, contain ex ISBN O 216 90753 5 at Los Alamos. Pulling aside to clear positions of parts of modern physics by July 1979 £7.95 net another car on a narrow lane without way of background to the accounts of his footpath, he knocked over an Army girl.

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