Within months of his vision in Russell Square Szilard patented the atomic chain reaction. ‘Knowing what it would mean,’ he wrote, ‘and I knew because I had read H. G. Wells—I did not want this patent to become public.’ He assigned the patent to the British Admiralty so that it might remain secret. Seeking to quarantine his terrifying revelations, he attempted to persuade eminent colleagues such as Niels Bohr and the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi that atomic weaponry was feasible, and that their nuclear research should therefore be kept secret to ensure Nazi Germany did not get the bomb first.
