Three quarters of a century ago, no one, not even the great Lord Rutherford (who discovered it), could describe the atomic nucleus. No theory was possible until it could be tamed experimentally and no satisfactory experiment seemed possible because it guarded its secrets so fiercely. And then, just at the point of despair, two young researchers at the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge came along and, with paper-and-pencil calculations, hand-made apparatus and the occasional lump of plasticine, changed everything, egged on by Rutherford. This book tells the inspiring story behind the "miracle year" of British physics - 1932 - the atom was split, the neutron discovered and nuclear science born.
- ISBN10 0374157162
- ISBN13 9780374157166
- Publish Date 12 January 2005 (first published 21 February 2004)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 August 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Farrar Straus Giroux
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 308
- Language English