About This Exhibit
This exhibit is based on the educational package, Moments of Discovery, Unit 1: The Discovery of Fission, by by Joan N. Warnow with Arthur Eisenkraft, Lillian Hoddeson, Spencer Weart and Charles Weiner, audio by Bill Schwarz, published by the American Institute of Physics in 1984 with support from the Public Understanding of Science Office of the National Science Foundation, the Heineman Foundation, and the Friends of the AIP Center for History of Physics. Copyright ©1984 and 2003. American Institute of Physics.
Exhibit Editors: Spencer Weart, Patrick McCray, Arthur Eisenkraft
Design: Tom Connell, American Institute of Physics
For further information
Further information on the history of physics can be obtained from the AlP's Center for History of Physics in College Park, MD.
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Photo Credits
Page 1
- J. J. Thomson in the Cavendish Laboratory about the turn of the century. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Ernest Rutherford. Drawing by R. G. Matthews. McGill University Information Office, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Niels Bohr, about 1927. Niels Bohr Institute, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Page 2
- Ernest Walton, Rutherford, and John Cockcroft outside the Cavendish Laboratory,1932. United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Albert Einstein, 1929. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Leo Szilard, 1935. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Rutherford. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Otto Hahn. Sketch by Elizabeth Korn. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives,
Korn Collection.
Fritz Strassmann in Mainz, Germany,1930. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. - Lise Meitner about 1925 in Tubingen. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Page 3
- Periodic table fragment.
- Hahn's laboratory table used for fission experiments. Keystone Press Agency, Inc. DO NOT COPY.
- Otto Robert Frisch, 1967. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Fig. 1—Frisch's drawing.
Page 4
- Fig. 2—drawings of fission.
- Frisch. Photograph copyright © Lotte Meitner-Graf.
- Bohr at the University of Michigan, 1933. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Léon Rosenfeld at the Niels Bohr Institute, 1934. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives. Weisskopf Collection.
- Frisch in his laboratory in Hamburg, 1931. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Fermi Film Collection.
Page 5
- Enrico Fermi in the 1930s. King Features Syndicate, Inc.
- Fermi with Herbert Anderson at the University of Chicago synchrocyclotron, 1953. University of Chicago, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Bohr at his Institute in Copenhagen,1934. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Weisskopf Collection.
- Fermi at the University of Michigan in the 1930s. Photograph by S. A. Goudsmit. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Goudsmit Collection.
Page 6
- John Dunning at the Columbia University cyclotron in the late 1930s. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- John A. Wheeler. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Luis Alvarez. AIP Emilio Segrè VisualArchives, Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates.
Page 7
- Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie at the Radium Institute in Paris, 1934. Radium Institute, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Lew Kowarski, 1969. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Page 8
- Dunning at the Columbia University cyclotron, 1938. Smithsonian Institution Science Service Collection, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Fig. 3—chain reaction.
- Szilard. Wide World Photos. AP/Wide World Photos. DO NOT COPY.
Page 9
- Kowarski and F. Joliot-Curie, about 1947. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Arthur Holly Compton. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Page 10
- The first self-sustaining chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942. Painting by Gary Sheahan. Copyright © Gary Sheahan.
- Szilard. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
- Fermi. AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Fermi Film Collection.
Voice credits
The audio files and accompanying script for this unit contain excerpts from the audio recordings listed here. In order to clarify passages, individual sentences or words have sometimes been moved out of their original order.
- Luis Alvarez. Oral history interview conducted for the AIP Center of History of Physics by Charles Weiner and Barry Richman, February 1967.
- Herbert L. Anderson. "Early Studies of the Fission Process." Talk given 27 April 1967 at the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 5-67-3).
- Herbert L. Anderson. "Making the Chain Reaction." Talk given 4 February 1974 at the Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-74-7).
- Niels Bohr. Radio talk to America on the occasion of the inauguration of the high voltage plant at the Niels Bohr Institute,1938. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-67-28).
- Arthur Holly Compton. Speech on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the first chain reaction, 2 December 1952. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-64-23).
- John Dunning. "U 235-Key to Fission." Talk given 27 April 1967 at the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-67-19).
- Albert Einstein. Soundtrack of the film, Atomic Physics, copyright © J. Arthur Rank Organization, Ltd., 1948. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-67-28).
- Enrico Fermi. Speech on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the first chain reaction, 2 December 1952. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-64-22).
- Otto Frisch. "Fission: How it all Began." Talk given 27 April 1967 at the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 5-67-3).
- Otto Frisch. Oral history interview conducted for the AIP Center for History of Physics by Charles Weiner, May 1967.
- Otto Hahn. Speech delivered at the University of California at Berkeley, 1955. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-68-9, 10).
- Lew Kowarski. Oral history interview conducted for the AIP Center for History of Physics by Charles Weiner, October 1969.
- Leon Rosenfeld. Oral history interview conducted for the AIP Center for History of Physics by Charles Weiner, September 1968.
- Ernest Rutherford. Lecture at Gottingen University,14 December 1931. Gramophone Co., Ltd. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-31-1).
- Leo Szilard. Interview by Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace Collection, George Arents Research Library, Syracuse University. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-74-18).
- Joseph John Thomson. Soundtrack of the film, Atomic Physics, copyright © J. Arthur Rank Organization, Ltd., 1948. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 7-67-28).
- John Wheeler. "Mechanism of Fission." Talk given 27 April 1967 at the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society. (AIP Niels Bohr Library, Misc. Tapes: 5-67-3).