The Basis of Everything: Rutherford, Oliphant and the Coming of the Atomic Bomb

by Andrew Ramsey

New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was the first Antipodean to be awarded a Nobel Prize and his partnership with Australian research assistant Mark Oliphant in Cambridge in the 1930s opened the door to knowledge that would lead to the atomic bomb. That story is told in this scientific history alongside the biographies of the two pioneering physicists, who shared the experience of a modest upbringing and rudimentary education in a small colonial outpost.

400 pages, Hardcover

Published July 22, 2019

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating history of two Antipodean scientific giants, Ernest Rutherford and Mark Oliphant. Both were country boys, Rutherford from New Zealand and Oliphant from South Australia. The first few chapters alternate between their early lives which were eerily similar, although Oliphant was 30 years younger. I found this mildly irritating but it soon stopped and moved on to a more chronological narrative. The book explores the friendship between the two men, particularly during their time together at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. It was a potted history of this institution as well as the story of the main protagonists. There were some facts that I was not aware of - for instance, Rutherford won his Nobel prize in chemistry, not physics, while he was working at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Oliphant’s life after the premature death of Rutherford is interesting. He was instrumental in the instigation and development of the Manhattan project (the nuclear bomb) but later regretted this and was something of a pacifist in later life. He returned to Australia around 1950 when the Australian National University in Canberra was started. It appears that he regretted this decision as Australia and especially Canberra was something of a scientific backwater then. He was later Governor of South Australia, the first scientist to hold such a position.,

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the development of the nuclear industry and the splitting of the atom. It is a fascinating story.