http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf0z09n7k3 No online items Leo Szilard Papers Mandeville Special Collections Library Mandeville Special Collections Library The UCSD Libraries 9500 Gilman Drive University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093-0175 Phone: (858) 534-2533 Fax: (858) 534-5950 URL: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/ Copyright 2005 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Leo Szilard Papers MSS 0032 1 Descriptive Summary Creator: Szilard, Leo Title: Leo Szilard Papers, Date (inclusive): 1898-1998 Extent: 47.30 linear feet(112 archives boxes, 1 records carton, 2 card file boxes, 18 oversize folders) Abstract: Papers of a nuclear physicist, biologist, and advocate of global arms control. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1898, Szilard moved to Berlin in 1919, where he studied engineering and physics and received his doctorate under Max von Laue at the University of Berlin. He migrated to England in 1933 where he made important discoveries relating to the nuclear chain-reaction. After moving to the United States in the late 1930s, he worked on the Manhattan Project and made significant contributions to the development of the atomic bomb. After World War II he concentrated on the field of biology and became one of the world's leading advocates of global cooperation and arms control. He was associated with many universities, including Oxford, Columbia, and Chicago. In 1951 he married Dr. Gertrude Weiss. In 1963 he became a fellow of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He died in San Diego, California, in 1964. The majority of the materials in the Szilard papers date from the late 1930s to the early 1960s -- the period following Szilard's move to the U.S. Materials dating from earlier years include patents, personal documents, and a number of letters. The collection best documents Szilard's work on the atomic bomb and his efforts on behalf of arms control and world cooperation. The papers are organized in twelve series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS, 4) SUBJECTS AND ORGANIZATIONS, 5) FINANCIAL RECORDS, 6) ADDRESSES, 7) GERTRUDE SZILARD MATERIALS, 8) PHOTOGRAPHS, 9) AUDIO MATERIALS, 10) AUDIO-VISUAL MATERIALS, 11) ARTIFACTS, and 12) NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS. Prominent correspondents include Enrico Fermi, J. William Fulbright, Otto Hahn, Hubert Humphrey, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Linus Pauling, Michael Polyani, Jonas Salk, Edward Teller, Harold C. Urey, and Eugene P. Wigner. Also included are copies of correspondence with Albert Einstein. The accessions processed in 2000 compliment the first accession and contain further correspondence with prominent individuals, including Leslie Groves, Frederic Joliot-Curie, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, and Max von Laue. Also included are letters (1936-1960), in German, from Szilard to Gertrude Weiss Szilard, his wife, and annotated drafts of the letter written with Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt disclosing developments in nuclear fission. The papers include recent articles on Szilard, documentation and memorabilia from programs and celebrations of his life and work, and materials related to Gertrude Weiss Szilard. The papers are arranged in five series: 1) CORRESPONDENCE, 2) WRITINGS BY LEO SZILARD, 3) ARTICLES, PROJECTS AND PROGRAMS ON SZILARD, 4) MISCELLANEOUS MATERIAL, and 5) GERTRUDE SZILARD MATERIALS. Repository: University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library. La Jolla, California 92093-0175 Collection number: MSS 0032 Language of Material: Collection materials in English Access Collection is open for research. Acquisition Information Not Available Preferred Citation Leo Szilard Papers, MSS 0032. Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD. Publication Rights Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection. Biography Leo Szilard is best known for his pioneering work in nuclear physics, his participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II, and his opposition to the nuclear arms race in the postwar era. The son of an engineer and the scion of an affluent Jewish family, Szilard was born Leo Spitz on February 11, 1898 in Budapest, Hungary. His family name was changed to Szilard in 1900. Szilard was a precocious child, and he took an interest in physics at the age of thirteen. He attended public school in Budapest before being drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army in 1917. In the army he was sent to officer's training school, but he was spared from active duty by a severe case of influenza. After the war he remained in Budapest but, due to political unrest and a lack of suitable educational opportunities, he left for Berlin in 1919. In Berlin Szilard studied engineering at the Institute of Technology (Technische Hochschule), but his primary interest was physics. He was attracted to the work of great physicists like Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Max Von Laue, Erwin Leo Szilard Papers MSS 0032 2 Schroedinger, Walter Nernst, and Fritz Haber -- most of whom were teaching in Berlin at that time. In 1921 Szilard gave up his engineering studies and enrolled at the University of Berlin, where he studied physics under Max von Laue, among others. He earned his doctorate -- cum laude -- in August 1922 after submitting his dissertation entitled Uber die thermodynamischen Schwankungserscheinungen. In this work Szilard showed "that the Second Law of Thermodynamics covers not only the mean values, as was up to then believed, but also determines the general form of the law that governs the fluctuating values." The dissertation presented ideas relating to what would become the foundation of modern information theory. Szilard began postdoctoral work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin with Hermann Mark. Szilard's studies focused on the anomalous scattering of X-rays in crystals and the polarization of X-rays by reflection on crystals. Between 1925 and 1933, he applied for numerous patents, often with Albert Einstein. One of the Szilard-Einstein patents covered the invention of a new refrigeration system based on a method for pumping metals by a moving magnetic field. The two physicists hoped to interest the company A.E.G. (the German General Electric company) in producing a practical refrigerator based on their patent. Although this refrigerator was never produced, the refrigeration system was used effectively in the U.S in 1942 to develop an atomic reactor. In 1933, With Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Szilard moved to England. In London he collaborated with T.A. Chalmers at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. There they developed the Szilard-Chalmers process, a technique to chemically separate radioactive elements from their stable isotopes. Much of Szilard's activity during this period related to his efforts to register his patents in England and to secure income with the help of the firm of Claremont, Haynes, and Company. Szilard's associates in various ventures included Isbert Adams, Arno Brasch, T.M. Vogelstein, R. Kammitzer, and Benjamin Liebowitz. Szilard also influenced Sir William Beveridge to found the Academic Assistance Council, an organization created to help persecuted scientists leave Nazi Germany. Between 1935 and 1937 he worked as a research physicist at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. It was on a street corner in London, in October 1933, that Szilard first conceived of the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction. The possibility of such a chain-reaction -- the process essential for the releasing of atomic energy -- had been dismissed by the eminent physicist Lord Ernest Rutherford. Szilard successfully proved Rutherford wrong. Szilard visited the United States several times in the mid-1930s, and he began to consider a move to America as the prospects for war in Europe increased. In 1938, at the time of the Munich pact, Szilard was a visiting lecturer in the United States. He decided to shift his residence to New York in anticipation of England's weakening policy toward Germany and the impending world war. At the Pupin Laboratories at Columbia University, Szilard collaborated with Walter Zinn to research neutron emissions. They discovered that two fast neutrons are probably emitted in the fission process, and that the element uranium might sustain a chain reaction. Subsequent investigations with Enrico Fermi and Herbert Anderson, also at Columbia, demonstrated that a system composed of water and uranium oxide approached the requirements for a self-sustaining chain reaction. Szilard elaborated on a graphite uranium system in his manuscript entitled "Divergent Chain Reactions in a System Composed of Uranium and Carbon" (later expanded into the "A-55 Report" for the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago) which was submitted and accepted (although withheld) for publication in the Physical Review on February 16, 1940. With the start of World War II, Szilard became intensely concerned about the applications of the new atomic theories to the development of weapons. Knowing that German nuclear research was at an advanced stage, he felt that the work being conducted by him and his colleagues should be withheld from publication. Szilard and his colleagues Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller hoped to gain the financial support of the United States Government in underwriting the cost of a definitive, large-scale experiment to prove that a sustained nuclear chain reaction was possible. Together they enlisted the assistance and influence of Albert Einstein. With Einstein's consent, Szilard drafted a letter, which was signed by Einstein and delivered to President Roosevelt by Alexander Sachs in October 1939. This letter outlined the possibility of the chain reaction and its implications for national defense. Szilard's work on atomic energy intensified during World War II. With governmental support approved by President Roosevelt and with the assistance of the National Bureau of Standards, Szilard began to procure graphite and uranium through negotiations with suppliers like the National Carbon Company. These materials were necessary components for a large scale chain-reaction experiment. From February 1942 to July 1946, Szilard worked as "Chief Physicist" for Arthur H. Compton at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago.