Abstract
This paper highlights the contribution of Leo Szilard in the development of atomic age. Szilard and his mentor Einstein were both theorists who shared a practical side. Szilard's work, included publication of a theory in statistical mechanics was recognized a generation later as a seminal paper in information theory. Szilard studied X-ray diffraction. He designed and filed patents for an electron microscope, as well as for a linear accelerator and a cyclotron, which became instruments for probing the structure of an atom. Development was dramatically escalated after the 1942 demonstration of a chain reaction. A chain reaction would require finding an element or isotope with a high probability of absorbing neutrons followed by the release of more free neutrons. The element subsequently would split to form smaller atoms. Szilard launched initiatives for the peaceful use of nuclear energy while trying to stop the arms race and prevent further use of nuclear weapons.
Highlights
It was a month after Germany invaded Poland to begin World War II, the largest conflict in human history
The letter warned that Germany might have taken over the uranium mines in Czechoslovakia, and added that the most important uranium source was the Belgian Congo
The energy released by splitting a uranium atom had been defined by Einstein's famous 1905 equation E=mc[2]
Summary
Physics of the 1920s provided Einstein and Szilard the excitement of discovering mysteries of nature, but seemed to be of little practical value. Szilard approached Einstein to collaborate on the invention of a safer refrigerator. Circulation was achieved by their invention of an electromagnetic pump with no moving parts and minimal risk ofleakage. Their refrigerator was licensed to General Electric in Germany. Einstein accepted a position at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, where he continued his interest in invention He collaborated with Gustav Bucky, a physician and inventor of medical equipment, and in 1936 they received a patent for an automatic-exposure camera. It used the photoelectric effect, which Einstein had explained in 1905. Wells had described an atom bomb in a novel, The World Set Free, published in 1914
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