Vol. 280 19 July 1979 257 reviews•

A 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. and Lise under Blackett gave him the first Meitner come very much alive, as does acquaintance with life in England. This was Mosr of nuclear has today become , with whom Frisch worked the time when artificial radioactivity was "big science", requiring large and expen­ much in . But very little discovered, and Frisch made his first sive accelerators, with complex detection emerges of Chadwick, with whom he was venture into : 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 , in a family belonging to the cultural tradition of early twentieth­ century Vienna. His aunt, the famous nu- "' clear physicist , 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 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 , and after three laboratories, including Copenhagen. are all recognisable likeness, and some years moved to to work under Frisch became involved in this work, or­ bring out the personality of the subject , 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 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 with . 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 . 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 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 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, , 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. own involvement with it. Being a physicist . ,, ,, The girl spent a few days in hospital and myself, I am not qualified to judge the , C . :. Blackie & Son Ltd. complained that Frisch had never visited appropriateness of these pieces. They are her or shown interest. This was reported to written with the clarity and simplicity to be -;:;"'. / Bishopbriggs, him, and he promptly appeared in hospital, expected from the author of Meet the Glasgow G64 2NZ, U.K. apologising and explaining that he had Atoms, yet I wonder whether the reader been concerned. "I enquired of the doctor who does not know the background can Circle No 27 on Reader Enquiry Card. © 1979 Nature Publishing Group Nature Vol. 280 19 July 1979 259

Published today: Food, Energy and Society David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel Resource and Environmental Sciences series This book examines the relationship between food, energy and society. The authors analyse and compare the ways in ;; which different societies, both 'developed' .c.,0 and 'undeveloped', use different kinds of ,,; energy in producing their food. They also ~ 0.. investigate the effects of substituting other ., resources (such as labour or land) for 5 some of this energy, and assess the ,2 nutritional quality of a variety of diets . ...5 The aim of this book is to explore the 8 0.. interdependencies of food, energy and their impacts on society. These analyses, it really assimilate enough information to small apparatus, of times when a physicist is hoped, will be a basis for planning and help him with the biographical chapters could think of an ingenious experiment implementing policies of individuals and nations as they face the inevitable which are the real meat of the book, and today and set it uo tomorrow. D dilemma of how eveiyone can be fed, which seem quite intelligible on their own. given the limited resources of the earth. This is a happy book, from which the author's personality and his enjoyment of Sir was Professor of Theoretical Paper £3. 95 Illustrated Physics at the University of Oxford until his physics, of music, of life, emerges clearly. retirement in 1974, and was previously It is also a portrait of the pre-War world of Professor of Mathematical Physics at the Uni­ Edward Arnold physics, of the days of small numbers and versity of Birmingham from 1937-63. 4 1 Bedford Square London WC 1B 3DQ

four authors, cover herd dynamics, inter­ ·rcle No. 28 on Reader Enquiry Card. Gelada harem relationships, social behaviour baboons within harems, the development of social Bring Your Ecological and Sociological Studies of behaviour and group structure, Library Up-To-Date Ge/ada Baboons. Edited by M. Kawai. Pp. reproductive behaviour, communication, 344. (S. Karger: Basel, Munchen, Paris and ranging behaviour and feeding ecology. With This ANS Edition ... London, 1978). DM148; $74. Particularly in areas where it concentrates on answering questions rather than broad, IN a variety of ways, gelada baboons are quantitative description, the book reveals J.M. Cleveland one of the most unprimate-like primates: fascinating insights into the behaviour of MONOGRAPH they are almost exclusively terrestrial; they the species: its description of herd stability, feed extensively on grass; and they of grooming relationships within harems aggregate in large herds of unstable and of food intake in relation to membership. Consequently, they are a abundance, provide novel coverage of The Chemistry species which might be expected to shed important topics. extensive light on relationships between Sadly, the reader's interest is titillated Of Plutonium ecological variables and behaviour and on more often than it is satisfied. Why do Approx. 680 pages 6" x 9" the functional significance of behavioural females periodically discipline their harem differences between primates and males by chasing them up cliffs? Why do Hardbound $49.00 ungulates. harem masters tolerate the presence of The volume recently edited by Kawai extra males in their harems which, even if American Nuclear Society provides a broad description of the ranging they are temporarily inhibited from 555 North Kensington Avenue behaviour, social organisation and feeding breeding, are likely to contest their La Grange Park, IL 60525 USA ecology of the species in the Gich area of hegemony in future? And why do male the Simien National Park in Ethiopia, but geladas not control their females in as Please take my order for __ book{s). does little to provide satisfactory chauvinistic a fashion as male hamadryas Payment in full enclosed. explanations of the geladas' many baboons - which share a similar Bill me and I accept postage and surprising characteristics. Four observers environment and social system? Attention handling charges. habituated several herds and learnt to to specific questions of this kind would Name ______recognise all individuals in one of them. As have provided the book with a stronger a result, they were able to examine both connecting theme and reduced the extent to Organization ______detailed social relationships among which it overlaps the previous volume on Street individual members of the harem-groups geladas in the same series. City ______which aggregate to form herds, and T. H. Clutton-Brock relationships between neighbouring herds. T. H. Clutton-Brock is at King's College State ______Zip _ ---~ Twelve chapters, by combinations of the Research Centre, Cambridge, UK. Circle No. 29 on Reader Enquiry Card. © Macmillan Journals Ltd 1979