A01=Simone Turchetti
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allegiance
atomic energy research establishment
Author_Simone Turchetti
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biography
bruno pontecorvo
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBLW3
Category=HBTW
Category=NHTW
classified
cold war
conspiracy
COP=United States
defection
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discovery
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espionage
fbi
history
industry
intellectual property
international relations
italy
knowledge
Language_English
loyalty
manhattan project
military
nonfiction
nuclear physics
PA=Available
patents
peace
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
science
secrecy
security
softlaunch
soviet union
spy
surveillance
Product details
- ISBN 9780226816647
- Weight: 539g
- Dimensions: 16 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 15 Feb 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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In the fall of 1950, newspapers around the world reported that the Italian-born nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo and his family had mysteriously disappeared while returning to Britain from a holiday trip. Because Pontecorvo was known to be an expert working for the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment, this raised immediate concern for the safety of atomic secrets, especially when it became known in the following months that he had defected to the Soviet Union. Was Pontecorvo a spy? Did he know and pass sensitive information about the bomb to Soviet experts? At the time, nuclear scientists, security personnel, Western government officials, and journalists assessed the case, but their efforts were inconclusive and speculations quickly turned to silence. In the years since, some have downplayed Pontecorvo's knowledge of atomic weaponry, while others have claimed him as part of a spy ring that infiltrated the Manhattan Project. "The Pontecorvo Affair" draws from newly disclosed sources to challenge previous attempts to solve the case, offering a balanced and well-documented account of Pontecorvo, his activities, and his possible motivations for defecting.
Along the way, Simone Turchetti reconsiders the place of nuclear physics and nuclear physicists in the twentieth century and reveals that as the discipline's promise of military and industrial uses came to the fore, so did the enforcement of new secrecy provisions on the few experts in the world specializing in its application.
Simone Turchetti is an independent research fellow at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at the University of Manchester.
