The Quantum Exodus
Jewish Fugitives, the Atomic Bomb, and the Holocaust
1st Edition
Published on 23. February 2012
978-0-19-162751-4 (ISBN)
Description
It was no accident that the Holocaust and the Atomic Bomb happened at the same time. When the Nazis came into power in 1933, their initial objective was not to get rid of Jews. Rather, their aim was to refine German culture: Jewish professors and teachers at fine universities were sacked. Atomic science had attracted a lot of Jewish talent, and as Albert Einstein and other quantum exiles scattered, they realized that they held the key to a weapon of unimaginable power. Convinced that their gentile counterparts in Germany had come to the same conclusion, and having witnessed what the Nazis were prepared to do, the exiles were afraid. They had to get to the Atomic Bomb first. The Nazis meanwhile had acquired a more pressing objective: their persecution of the Jews had evolved into extermination. Two dreadful projects - the Bomb and the Holocaust - became locked a grisly race.
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02/2012
Oxford University Press
€70.57
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Person
Gordon Fraser (the late) was for many years the in-house editor at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva. His books on popular science and scientists include Cosmic Anger, a biography of Abdus Salam, the first Muslim Nobel scientist, and Antimatter: The Ultimate Mirror. He was also the editor of The New Physics for the 21st Century and The Particle Century. After undergraduate studies at Imperial College, London, he went on to a PhD in theoretical particle physics, and has worked as a research scientist as well as a journalist.
Content
- 1: Neutrons and Nazis
- 2: The Rise of German Science
- 3: Cultural Cleansing
- 4: Emblematic Emigrants
- 5: The Fall of German Science
- 6: Plagues
- 7: Abide With Me
- 8: Fission Mission
- 9: Gathering Nuclear Fuel
- 10: For in Much Wisdom is Much Grief
- 11: Science and Anxiety
- 12: Epilogue - Europe redux
- Appendix, Bibliography and Acknowledgements
