Cathcart (Test of Greatness: Britain's Struggle for the Atom Bomb
), a former reporter for Reuters, presents a superb account of the genesis of nuclear physics in the first third of the 20th century. Although the centerpiece of his story is the experiment performed on April 14, 1932, by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, in which an atom of lithium was split into two alpha particles (they would win a Nobel prize for this 19 years later), Cathcart fully describes the experiment's scientific and social context. Through crisp prose, interesting analogies and ample insight, he makes the basics of nuclear physics accessible while demonstrating the passion scientists have for their work. Cockcroft and Walton both worked under Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford at the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University at a time when precious little was known about the nucleus at the center of every atom. The race to understand the inner workings of the nucleus and to split an atom into its component parts was an international one, including labs in Germany, Denmark, Russia and the United States. The great progress that was made in a short time was all the more amazing given that labs had limited budgets and virtually all equipment first had to be conceptualized and then made from scratch. Cathcart instills in the reader a sense of excitement as the nuclear age unfolds around the world. B&w illus. (Jan.)
