Blackett : Physics, War, and Politics in the Twentieth Century / Mary Jo Nye.

Reprint 2014

9780674335752

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2013]

©2004

English

In English.

1 online resource (255 p.) : 11 halftones, 1 line illustration

10.4159/harvard.9780674335752 doi

QC16.B59

539.7/092

This is a lively and compact biography of P. M. S. Blackett, one of the most brilliant and controversial physicists of the twentieth century. Nobel laureate, leader of operational research during the Second World War, scientific advisor to the British government, President of the Royal Society, member of the House of Lords, Blackett was also denounced as a Stalinist apologist for opposing American and British development of atomic weapons, subjected to FBI surveillance, and named as a fellow traveler on George Orwell's infamous list. His service as a British Royal Navy officer in the First World War prepared Blackett to take a scientific advisory role on military matters in the mid-1930s. An international leader in the experimental techniques of the cloud chamber, he was a pioneer in the application of magnetic evidence for the geophysical theory of continental drift. But his strong political stands made him a polarizing influence, and the decisions he made capture the complexity of living a prominent twentieth-century scientific life.

Access limited to authorized users.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

text file PDF

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Nov 2021)

print 9780674335738

Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources