| "Talk softly, please. I have been engaged in experiments which suggest that the atom can be artificially disintegrated. If it is true, it is of far greater importance than a war." - Ernest Rutherford; in a retort when he was censured for not attending a British committee meeting on submarine defenses; 1919 |
| "Well, now, gentlemen, I'd just like you to tell me, what exactly is an atom?" - David Hilbert; Gottingen University; a traditional greeting to his new students each term. |
In Robert Jungk's famous book: "Brighter than a Thousand Suns - A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists"; Harcourt, Inc. 1958, Mr. Jungk refers to the period of 1923 through 1932 as "the beautiful years." This was a time when international collaboration among the scientific community was at an all time high. Never before - and perhaps never again - would university men have so much cause to consider themselves the true leaders of society as here in Gottingen during "the beautiful years." Since there was so much that was new and uncertain in the domain of atomic research, teachers and pupils drew closer together than in other disciplines. James Franck, who already held the Nobel prize for physics (the same James Franck that worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago's Met Lab), could turn from the blackboard on which he had lost his way in a difficult calculation and inquire of one of his students, "Perhaps you can see the next step?" A highlight of every week of the term was the "Seminar on Matter", conducted in Room 204 of the Institute by Max Born, James Franck and David Hilbert. The free exchange of knowledge was enlightening...and, invigorating. James Franck, like Born, came of a Jewish family which had long been settled in Germany. He could never forget his Hamburg origin. In spite of his cordiality and warmth which made him very popular amongst his students, he kept other people at a certain distance. He remained always a Hamburg aristocrat. In the winter semester of 1926 a slender, rather delicate looking American student distinguished himself, even among such highly talented people as those that frequented Gottingen. He was often able to improvise on the spur of the moment entire dissertations, so that hardly anyone else had a chance to speak. In a little less than twenty years he was to become the world renowned J. Robert Oppenheimer. Throughout the twenties and early thirties, dozens of American intellectuals traveled to Gottingen to participate in the exchange. Many of the American's had their education paid for by financiers, such as the Rockefeller Foundation. This influx of funds was eagerly welcomed by the financially-strapped Germans. As the "crisis" in Europe began to take shape, the Copenhagen lab of Niels Bohr became the model of stability. Creative thought was encouraged and several of the physicists exiled from Germany came to Copenhagen. In 1932, the same year that James Chadwick, a British physicist, discovered the neutron, Leo Szilard emigrated from his native Hungary to Germany. There he began studying at the University of Berlin where such notables as Einstein, Nernst, von Laue and Planck were teaching. Under their influence, Szilard turned from a planned career in civil engineering to one of theoretical physics. He excelled quickly, first becoming a first assistant to von Laue and then lecturing himself at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. When Hitler came to power, Szilard moved to Vienna for awhile and eventually went to England where he had the chance to work with Rutherford. Of course, later on Szilard was instrumental in "kick-starting" the American effort toward atomic energy by encouraging his friend, Albert Einstein, to write his famous letter to F.D.R.
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