People of Science with Brian Cox - Professor Martin Rees on Joseph Rotblat
Transcript
- Hello. I'm Professor Brian Cox. Welcome to People of Science.
- Professor Martin Rees could you first
- describe who you are and what your
- research area is?
- Martin: Yes I'm an Astronomer and Cosmologist and I work
- mainly in Cambridge University.
- Brian: And who have you chosen as your person of science?
- Martin: I've chosen Joseph Rotblat who was a physicist.
- He was born in 1908 and he grew up in Poland
- and before the war he'd already established himself
- as a research scientist in nuclear physics.
- But was most famous really because he was a pioneer
- of addressing arms control and I choose him
- because he really exemplifies to me,
- a scientist with a social responsibility.
- Brian: But I suppose he is defined and famous for his work
- in the Manhattan Project and motivated, in the main
- by a fear that the Germans would acquire the bomb first.
- Martin: From the late 1930s there were intimations
- that it might be possible to cause a runaway nuclear reaction
- that could lead to an explosion which would be hugely more powerful
- than a chemical explosion.
- So the idea was that by putting a sufficiently large mass
- of some material like uranium, radioactive together
- you could trigger this explosion.
- The motivation for those people who went to Los Alamos
- was to get a bomb before Hitler did because they knew they well
- that famous scientists like Heisenberg were there in Germany
- and that's why it was valuable to deploy
- many of the greatest physicists of the era in Los Alamos.
- Rotblat was there but also Oppenheimer,
- Hans Bethe and the young Richard Feynman was there as well.
- So they got the really best talent there
- to actually work out how these bombs should be made to work.
- Brian: This is interesting here. This is the Nature article.
- Martin: That's right. This is about 1939.
- Brian: On "emission of neutrons accompanying the fission of uranium nuclei."
- Martin: This is work that he must have done in Poland.
- Brian: So this is some of the foundational, theoretical work
- that would later be used to build the bomb.
- Martin: Yes.
- But in fact it is interesting that if you study the literature on nuclear physics
- there's a sudden blackout about 1941
- and anyone who'd just follow the literature would realise
- something was happening
- because there were no papers from any well-known nuclear physicists.
- They're all gone to work at Los Alamos.
- Brian: Yes, on the Manhattan Project.
- It’s interesting because throughout this series
- The People of Science, we've had many
- Nobel Prize winners for science.
- But this is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
- So could you describe that process he went
- through after the war?
- Martin: When it became clear that Hitler was not going
- to get a nuclear weapon it was clear by the end
- of 1944 then Rotblat had second thoughts
- and he actually left the project prematurely.
- He became shocked by the dropping of the bombs
- on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
- And when he returned to England he determined
- that he would devote himself to peaceful uses
- of nuclear physics and tried to control the powers
- he had helped unleash as it were.
- He organised conferences urging the abolition
- of nuclear weapons and they had their first conference
- in a village called Pugwash in Nova Scotia.
- And that's why these conferences became known as
- Pugwash Conferences. And these were important
- because scientists from the west and from the Soviet Union
- could get together.
- Brian: And what I think is very inspiring in this case
- is it worked.
- So it's not just a group of idealists coming together
- and discussing things in an abstract sense
- they actually did catalyse test ban treaties.
- Martin: Yes, the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 was definitely
- an outcome of these discussions
- as also was the Antiballistic Missile Treaty
- in the late 1960s.
- So these meetings had a genuine impact
- in pushing disarmament forward.
- And in 1995 the Nobel Prize was given
- half to the Pugwash organization and half
- to Joe Rotblat personally and in his speech
- he said famously, “above all remember your humanity.”
- And that was the guiding light throughout his long life.
- Brian: It's interesting because you see today
- there's often pressure for scientists to be somehow
- pure isn't there and stay out of this dirty world of politics.
- And Rotblat really did not feel like that.
- Do you think we still have that spirit today?
- Martin: Well I think we should.
- I think it's fair to say that now there are many
- areas of science which have potential uses
- which are on the one hand hugely beneficial.
- but on the other hand potentially catastrophic.
- And I think all scientists really need to follow
- the example of Joe Rotblat who thought
- that scientists should sign a sort of Hippocratic Oath.
- Scientists should be aware of the role of science in society.
- And in their career, their professional work
- they should not do anything which could lead to harm to society.
- Martin: He was the prime exemplar of a type of scientist
- who we ought to value more and who needs to be
- followed by others.
Martin Rees talks to Brian Cox about one of his heroes, Joseph Rotblat, a physicist on the Manhattan Project, who later became a leading advocate of peace and disarmament.
Archive credits:
Portrait of Joseph Rotblat © Anne Purkiss
Hans Bethe portrait - Los Alamos National Laboratory, all rights reserved
2002 interview by Edward Goldwyn, used with permission of the University of Sheffield Faculty of Engineering.
Other images © British Pugwash
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