This compelling history portrays the human faces and lives behind the beginnings of atomic science, from experiments in the 1880s to the era just after the First World War.

The concept of the atom is very close to scientific bedrock, the deepest and most fundamental fact about the nature of reality. This book presents the whole panorama of the atomic hypothesis, and its place in Western civilization, from its origins in early Greek philosophy 2500 years ago to the definitive proof through direct microscopic imaging of since atoms, about ten years ago.

This book presents the life and work of Professor Evan James Williams, described as one of Wales’s most eminent scientists. Williams played a prominent part in the early twentieth-century revolution in physics with the emergence of quantum science, and was an able experimentalist and accomplished theoretician who made notable contributions in atomic physics and the discovery of a new elementary particle. From humble beginnings in rural Cardiganshire, his stellar career is charted in this book as he climbed the academic ladder at a number of universities, culminating in his appointment as Professor of Physics at Aberystwyth, and election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society. During the Second World War, Williams was instrumental in applying Operational Research to thwart the threat of German submarines in the Atlantic; his career was cut short, however, by his early death in 1945.

Atomic Age America looks at the broad influence of atomic energy¿focusing particularly on nuclear weapons and nuclear power¿on the lives of Americans within a world context. The text examines the social, political, diplomatic, environmental, and technical impacts of atomic energy on the 20th and 21st centuries, with a look back to the origins of atomic theory.