Found Art Inside Nuclear Fission (1939)--Albert Ein(stein)?

JF Ptak Science Books   Post 2415

Well: this is "inside" the book in which nuclear fission is announced--the backstrip/spine was pulled away on one edge from my um "lovely" copy of Naturwissenschaften, volume 27, 1939, to reveal the chocolatey-nugget equivalent of the guts of a book.  This is the famous volume which contains (at least) six seminal contributions in the history of nuclear physics including the big one by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman (on January 6)  in which they announce the discovery of uranium fission¹.  The spine cover is still hinged on one side, making it a convenient flap to see the covering for the glue etc. holding the sewn signatures and the spine together. 

The anatomy of the book reveals a  pretty and interesting art-ish composition, with a surprise: there are major elements of Albert Ein(stein's) name display, clear as an azure sky of deepest summer (a line by Peter O'Toole from The Ruling Class).  

This is highly appropriate. Einstein naturally knew of all o these developments and felt deeply threatened by them because of the next step, which would be atomic-bomb-building. So on August 2, 1939, he and Leo Szilard wrote a letter to Franklin Roosevelt urging American development towards this end, because surely the Germans would be up to it as well.  Although written in August the letter (the first of three) would not be delivered by Szilard to the President until October.  I think that it can be safely said that this meeting was the first step in the development of the Manhattan Project.  Roosevelt's immediate reaction in this meeting was to insist that the U.S. do The Mega Big Something to ensure that "the Nazis don't blow us up".

In any event, I found it at first artistic and then weirdly interesting that Einstein's name almost appears in the hidden part of this important volume.  

 

Notes

1.  This would be cleared up further as nuclear fission by Lise Meitner in the February 11 1939 issue of the journal Nature.  

The papers contained in this volume of Naturwissenschaften:

HAHN, Otto and Fritz Strassmann.  Six papers announcing the discovery of nuclear fission, including:

"Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten der bei der Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle" (On the detection and characteristics of the alkaline earth metals formed by irradiation of uranium with neutrons)

____.  Nachweis der Enstehung aktiver Bariumisotope aus Uran und Thorium durch Neutronenbestrahlung' Nachweis weiterer aktiver Bruchstucke bei der Uranspaltung. 

____. Uebervdie Bruchstucke beim Zerplatzen des Urans 

____. Zur frage nach dervEzistenz der "Trans-Urane".

____. Weite Spaltproduckte aus der Bestrahlung des Urans mit Nuetronen.

____. F. Strassmann und S. Fluegge. ueber einige Bruchstuckebeim Zerplatzendes Thoriums. 

All in Die Naturwissenschaften volume 27.  The volume of 862pp.