Overview

C P Snow's sketches of famous physicists and explanation of how atomic weapons were developed gives an overview of science often lacking. This study provides us with hope for the future as well as anecdotes from history.

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9781842324363

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Reviews

These brief chapters from a contemplated longer work by the late Lord Snow are uncommonly good, clear expositions of the people and ideas that made the first half of the 20th century the Golden Age of physics. They are also deeply personal. Snow's friend, physicist William Cooper (who edited the last chapters from notes), explains in the introduction that Snow wrote from memory - a surpassingly good memory - of student days and encounters with the eminent, and later of the war and postwar periods. Here then are Rutherford and Bohr, Dirac and Kapitsa, Born and Heisenberg, Schrodinger and de Broglie, seen as characters and contributors in a historical drama with social, moral, and aesthetic implications. Snow sketches the principal experiments and theories that led to the atom bomb and current particle physics with broad brush strokes, describing each individual's qualities of excellence. Rutherford, for example, had a genius for tackling problems for which he could devise decisive experiments - usually on a shoestring. Snow is harsh on Heisenberg, the committed German nationalist; but for the most part, the characters are multi-dimensional heroes. Snow never lost his faith that science in its curiosity to find out what is there could ultimately solve technological problems - whether nuclear fusion or feeding the world's poor. He always maintained, moreover, that science had a moral as well as an aesthetic sensibility - as per a 1960 essay appended here. Also present: the famous Einstein-Roosevelt letter about splitting the atom; and a prescient editorial Snow wrote for a September 1939 issue of Discovery, A New Means of Destruction? The Snow of the Two Cultures is not in evidence, but the novelist is: the writing combines economy and insight - condensing, but not oversimplifying - to make this last work a remarkable accomplishment, a book that can be profitably and enjoyably read by the earnest student as well as the seasoned sophisticate. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

C.P. Snow was born in Leicester, on 15 October 1905. He was educated from age 11 at Alderman Newton's School for boys where he excelled in most subjects, enjoying a reputation for an astounding memory. In 1923, he gained an external scholarship in science at London University, whilst working as a laboratory assistant at Newton's to gain the necessary practical experience, because Leicester University, as it was to become, had no chemistry or physics departments at that time. Having achieved a first class degree, followed by a Master of Science he won a studentship in 1928 which he used to research at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Snow went on to become a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1930 where he also served as a tutor, but his position became increasingly titular as he branched into other areas of activity. In 1934, he began to publish scientific articles in 'Nature', and then 'The Spectator' before becoming editor of the journal 'Discovery' in 1937. He was also writing fiction during this period and in 1940 'Strangers and Brothers' was published. This was the first of eleven novels in the series and was later renamed 'George Passant' when 'Strangers and Brothers' was used to denote the series itself. 'Discovery' became a casualty of the war, closing in 1940. However, by this time Snow was already involved with the Royal Society, who had organised a group to specifically use British scientific talent operating under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. He served as the Ministry's technical director from 1940 to 1944. After the war, he became a civil service commissioner responsible for recruiting scientists to work for the government and also returned to writing, continuing the 'Strangers and Brothers' novels. 'The Light and the Dark' was published in 1947, followed by 'Time of Hope' in 1949, and perhaps the most famous and popular of them all, 'The Masters', in 1951. He planned to finish the cycle within five years, but the final novel 'Last Things' wasn't published until 1970. C.P. Snow married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson in 1950 and they had one son, Philip, in 1952. He was knighted in 1957 and became a life peer in 1964, taking the title Baron Snow of the City Leicester. He also joined Harold Wilson's first government as Parliamentary Secretary to the new Minister of Technology. When the department ceased to exist in 1966 he became a vociferous back-bencher in the House of Lords. After finishing the 'Strangers and Brothers' series, Snow continued writing both fiction and non-fiction. His last work of fiction was 'A Coat of Vanish', published in 1978. His non-fiction included a short life of Trollope published in 1974 and another, published posthumously in 1981, 'The Physicists: a Generation that Changed the World'. He was also inundated with lecturing requests and offers of honorary doctorates. In 1961, he became Rector of St. Andrews University and for ten years also wrote influential weekly reviews for the 'Financial Times'.

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