The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom: Amazon.co.uk: Brian Cathcart: Books

Brian Cathcart, the author of this book, explains during his introductions that he is a 'non-scientist' writing upon the records and historical accounts of how the nuclei in the atom became split, the great onset of nuclear physics. Mr. Cathcart's research, as is shown by the lengthy bibliography, is a very good detailed account not only in how the disintegration process came about but also an intricate lesson in atomic physics itself. Brian certainly links the science with world events that followed and, in taking forward the work of Chadwick, Cockcroft and Walton illustrates the advances of science that made the process of 'fission' with uranium and plutonium identifiable.

The novel concentrates on the years prior to 1932. Professor Lord Rutherford, director of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, authorised through curiosity experimental trials to proceed on the hunches of Walton and Cockcroft who, later themselves, received the Nobel Prize for research into atomic nuclear theory. Painstakingly patient, the two scientists enter a race against time in being the first to announce the breakthrough. The announcement, on being first to transmute atomic nuclei, was made by Lord Rutherford, unusually at the Royal Society before official publication within the officially recognised scientific journals. Rutherford had no choice given the rapid advance of scientists elsewhere working on similar projects. Brian Cathcart gives a detailed and exploratory analysis of scientific trial and error, the developments in advancing artificially accelerated particles and the well documented practices at the Cavendish, the Cambridge Institute that has fathered major breakthroughs in scientific research.

A book that should be an essential component for any budding scientist eager to understand the evolution of nuclear physics and, a guide for anyone interested in tracing nuclear theory to date, the author also shows how the work of Cockcroft and Walton reconciles to the theory of Einstein. The splitting of the atom equates to the energy released under Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Einstein himself having visited the Cavendish in meeting with the two men.

The last words of the book summarily sum up the whole book in a virtual nutshell. Expounding the words of Lord Rutherford to a journalist from the Daily Herald, the professor ends: "We are rather like children, who must take a watch to pieces to see how it works."

www.markatscotland.blogspot.com

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4.0 out of 5 stars You don't need to be interested in flies or cathedrals., 22 Sep 2004

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Joy Balley (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom (Hardcover)

This is a really good tale for everyone: from scientists interested in the progress of atomic physics at the start of the last century, to anyone simply wanting in a good human story relating to a time now past. The science is there if you want it and is explained helpfully without annoying the specialist. Find out how the strands of science come together and coalesce at just the right moment: how the gentlemanly relaxed Brits get there almost by accident, while competing Americans puff and find they are shooting for the wrong goal. If your normal reading is Stephen Hawking you will surely like this. And so will you, equally, if you read Agatha Christie or Delia Smith.

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5.0 out of 5 stars I grew up with these scientists, 17 Sep 2011

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Roger Goodlet - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book tremendously. I had always known that my father had helped split the atom, but this book explains his role in detail. He designed the special transformer that was needed and persuaded his company, Metropolitan- Vickers donate it fee of charge to the Cavendish Labs in Cambridge. The book tells his part of the story in detail. Most of the scientists involved were later collected together after the war by Sir John Cockcroft at the Atomic Research Establishment at Harwell in Berkshire,to develop peaceful atomic power and the story is made intensely real to me because my father was one of them. During the time I was growing up at Harwell I met many of the men who appear in Mr.Cathcart's story. We even lived next to Klaus Fuchs the atomic spy. Well done Mr Cathcart, you have written an intensely acccurate human and enjoyable account of a great British acheivement. My father was a serious man and I only ever rememmber him telling one joke, it was about Lord Rutherford, the pre-eminent scientist of the age: "I was dining with Lord Rutherford and some other famous physicists at a Cambridge dinner when I asked him rather pompously if he could pass me the H20. He immediately obliged by passing me the NACL"

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5.0 out of 5 stars Splitting the Atom: Experimental Physics in 1930
This is a delightful book and a good read. The experimental work of Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft and the working conditions in the Cavendish laboratory are clearly explained... Read more

Published on 16 Nov 2006 by John Bamfield