Book cover of The Fly in the Cathedral: How a Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the International Race to Split the Atom

Book description

"Cathcart tells this exhilarating story with both verve and precision" --The Sunday Telegraph

Re-creating the frustrations, excitements, and obsessions of 1932, the "miracle year" of British physics, Brian Cathcart reveals in rich detail the astonishing story behind the splitting of the atom. The most celebrated scientific experiment of its time,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Fly in the Cathedral as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a thrilling book that tells the story of the quest to split the atom in the 1920s and 30s at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory.

I love the way Cathcart brings historic characters like Ernest Rutherford to life on the page, and really gets across the excitement of a period where physicists were making incredibly rapid progress in understanding the deepest workings of nature.

From Harry's list on the universe and our cosmic origins.

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