THE RACE TO BUILD THE ATOMIC BOMB （比赛建造原子弹）.pdf

LECTURE NOTES 1999-2001 Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecture THE RACE TO BUILD THE ATOMIC BOMB J. David Rogers, Ph.D., P.E. Department of Geological Engineering, 129 McNutt Hall, 1870 Miner Circle University of Missouri, Rolla, MO 65409-0230 Unraveling the Mysteries of Atomic Structure and Radioactivity The scale of atomic structure made it one of the last mysteries of science to be unraveled, during the first half of the 20th Century. 1905 - Marie Sklodowska Curie (1867-1934), her husband Pierre Curie (1859-1906), and Henri Becquerel received the Nobel Prize for physics for their work on radioactivity, and Marie was granted her doctorate the same year. After Pierre was killed while crossing a street in 1906, Marie continued with her work, and the couple received a second Nobel Prize in 1911 for discovering two radioactive elements, radium and polonium. 1906 – While working at the Cavindish laboratory at Cambridge University, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford discovers that alpha particles were deflected on passing through atoms, by measuring the deflection in a magnetic field and allowing the particles to impact photographic film. He receives the 1908 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this discovery. Race to Build the Atomic Bomb J. David Rogers Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937) The Fission Dream 1907 - While working at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Albert Einstein publishes three articles in the German publication Annals of Physics. These include 1) The quantum theory to explain the photoelectric effect; 2) The relation of mass to energy; and