Destroyer of Worlds

From the award-winning science writer, a new history of the development of nuclear power and the extraordinary minds behind it

Henry Becquerel’s accidental discovery, in Paris in 1896, of a faint smudge on a photographic plate sparked a chain of discoveries which would unleash the atomic age.

Destroyer of Worlds is the story of how pursuit of this hidden source of nuclear power, which began innocently and collaboratively, was overwhelmed by the politics of the 1930s, and following devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened the way to a still more terrible possibility: a thermonuclear bomb, the so-called “backyard weapon”, that could destroy all life on earth – from anywhere.

The story spans decades and continents, moving from Becquerel to Ernest Rutherford, the Cambridge-based, New Zealand scientist who first split the atom, expands to include Enrico Fermi in Rome, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in Berlin and the Joliot-Curies in Paris, leading to the appearance of Robert Oppenheimer before climaxing with increasingly horrifying developments in the USA and USSR. The roles of three remarkable women – Lise Meitner, Ida Noddack and Irene Curie – are re-evaluated, and there are new insights into the work of Ettore Majorana, Fermi’s mercurial but brilliant assistant, who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, possibly after foreseeing the explosive power of nuclear energy. Above all, this is a story of how knowledge is often advanced by personal convictions and relationships, an indeed by chance, in a remarkable way.

Review

Stirring ... Close's ensemble drama is a powerful corrective to the myth of the solitary genius. An eminent theoretical physicist, he walks us step-by-step through what he calls the 'Third Industrial Revolution', [shining] a light on the bustling cast of scientists whose 50-year pursuit of knowledge led ineluctably to the atomic bomb. The depth of Close's knowledge throws up surprises even if you know the territory ... he convenes these fascinating personalities deftly and has an abundant supply of thrills, tragedies and gratifying trivia. -- Dorian Lynskey ― Spectator

Close writes with elegance and lucidity about the resulting experiments and investigations [and] the breakthroughs that led to the atom bomb [so that] the sense of wonderment and awe that drives the quest shines through. Close also turns the spotlight on figures often forgotten, such as Ettore Majorana, a young Sicilian physicist, whom Fermi rated as a genius to rank alongside Newton and who did much to unravel the mysteries of atomic structure. -- Jonathan Ford ― Financial Times

Destroyer of Worlds is a cogent, detailed account of one of history's brightest and darkest chapters, in which amazing scientific insights into atoms and their nuclei coincided with fascism and world-wide conflict. Frank Close shows us how the initial dreams of beneficial atomic energy were transmuted, with frightening speed, into nightmares. Amidst our current enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and other game-changing technologies, this book offers us all a stern warning -- Matt Strassler, author of Waves in an Impossible Sea

Kinetic, dramatic, and compulsively readable, Destroyer of Worlds follows dozens of astounding scientific discoveries that led to the development of nuclear weapons. In powerful, plain language, Close connects humanity’s unstoppable scientific curiosity to our species’ strange willingness to visit existential threats upon ourselves -- Patchen Barss, author of The Impossible Man

If you enjoyed the movie “Oppenheimer,” you will be thrilled by Frank Close’s Destroyer of Worlds. With a knack for explaining the history of nuclear energy in simple terms, Close takes us to the “rooms where it happened,” revealing the struggles, mistakes, and triumphs that led from the discovery of radioactivity to up to the nuclear age -- Robert Cahn, co-author of Grace in All Simplicity

Once again, Frank Close explains sophisticated science in a way that anyone can understand, and tells a gripping story in the process: how a smudge in a photographic plate in March 1896 led, almost inexorably, to the development of the most terrifying weapons of war ever created. Along the way we are introduced to the fascinating characters who propelled this drama, people like Roentgen and Becquerel, Rutherford and the Curies, Bohr and Einstein, Fermi and Szilard, Teller and Oppenheimer, and a host of other geniuses whose scientific curiosity led mankind down a dark path indeed. For those interested in how the quest to understand radioactivity and the atomic nucleus led to the development of the hydrogen bomb, this book is a great place to start -- David Schwartz, author of The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Close recounts the story that led from the scientific discovery of the perplexing phenomenon of radioactivity at the end of the 19th century to potentially world-destroying weapons six decades later ... a splendid history -- Philip Ball ― New World

Destroyer of Worlds tries to live up to the jeopardy of its title by attempting to solve the mystery of Ettore Majorana [and] shows how it took many great minds to bring the nuclear genie out of its lamp. Close's main focus is the female physicists who escaped their share of the nuclear limelight. -- George Bass ― New Scientist

About the Author

Frank Close is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University and Fellow Emeritus in Physics at Exeter College, Oxford. He is the author of The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe and most recently Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History. He was formerly Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell and Head of Communications and Public Education at CERN. He was awarded the Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics for his 'outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics' in 1996, and the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for communicating science in 2013.