An outside broadcast team from the BBC have been recording material for a possible slot on the BBC's early evening "One Show". They've been looking at Soddy's life and work, and at some of the radioactive and non-radioactive materials relating to his work here in Glasgow.
The recording has not gone smoothly, having been interrupted first by developments in the Clutha bar helicopter crash, and then by high winds and damage to buildings.
However, yesterday, we managed to get all the filming done. If editing goes as planned, there should be an item on the One Show, at 7pm tomorrow night (12th December).
Amazing Frederick Soddy fact:
He was the first scientist of the atomic age to foresee the weapons potential. In a scientific article with Ernest Rutherford, published in 1903 the phrase "atomic energy" had been used for the first time.(Rutherford,E. and Soddy,F. 1903, Radioactive Change. Philosophical Magazine series 6, No. 5, p 576-591). To the end of his life, Rutherford never believed that anything would come of "atomic energy", but Soddy saw at once the temptation that this might pose as the basis for new and terrible weapons, as well as for peaceful uses.
I n January 1904, he gave a speech to the Corps of Royal Engineers, at Chatham, which included this:
"It is possible that all heavy matter possesses latent and bound up with the structure of the atom, a similar quantitiy of energy to that possessed by radium. It it could be tapped and controlled, what an agent it would be in shaping the world's destiny! The man who put his hand on the lever... would possess a weapon by which he could destroy the earth if he chose."
Soddy's awareness, not just of the energy involved in nuclear processes,
but of the likelihood of military applications was remarkable. This became a recurring theme in Soddy's writing, and was one of the main factors responsible for his giving up research in radiochemistry, and devoting his later academic life to economics, social policy, and the role of science in decision-making.
HG Wells took on board Soddy's ideas, and in 1914, before the First World War, he published a novel "The World Set Free" which is dedicated to Soddy's ideas, and in which the phrase "atomic bomb" first appears (on page 96). These bombs, dropped from biplanes, can destroy whole cities, and lead to a catastrophic global war, before mankind chooses peace, and a new era of atomic-powered prosperity and wealth.
This book helped create the actual atomic bomb. Leo Szilard read Wells' book in 1932, had the insight that a nuclear chain reaction could be used to create such a weapon, and
patented the idea in 1934. With Einstein and others, he was part of the group which secured US government funding for the Manhattan Project. Soddy's ideas, and Wells novel thus had a direct link to the creation, and use of nuclear weapons.
Having helped create this new world, Soddy was also probably the first nuclear objector, abandoning his reearch when at the height of his powers. In doing so, he attracted ridicule, and wrote himself out of much of the history of the atomic age which was written later in the century. Perhaps now it is time to look again at his short, but amazing contribution to birth of our modern scientific world view, in Montreal, London and Glasgow at the start of the 20th century.
