artificial-atomic-disintegration

Rutherford's experiments bombarding nitrogen with alpha particles to transform it into oxygen and hydrogen, demonstrating the first artificial transmutation of matter.

1 chapter across 1 book

Brighter than a Thousand Suns - A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1956)Robert Jungk

C. F. von Weizslcker gave me access to his unpublished comments on Alsos by S. A. Goudsmit, as well as "Bemertungen zur Atombombc" (an uncompleted set of notes made in August, 1945). W. Heisenberg lent me the duplicated text of the parody of Faust (Copenhagen, 1932). Pascual Jordan gave me an unpubllshed manuscript about Heisenberg. Michael Amrine made available to me various notes and articles concerning the

This chapter details the post-World War I period (1918-1923) in atomic physics, focusing on Ernest Rutherford's groundbreaking experiments that achieved artificial disintegration of the atom, marking the first successful transmutation of matter. It highlights the tension between scientific discovery and its potential military misuse, the international collaboration and communication among physicists despite wartime hostilities, and the profound paradigm shifts in physics brought about by Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Rutherford that challenged classical conceptions of nature, matter, space, and time.