What do you think?
Rate this book
Oliphant: The Life and Times of Sir Mark Oliphant
369 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
June 15, 2014
As a cocky, self-assured, graduate physicist I was attending an AINSE (Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering) conference in November 1983. At some point in the proceedings I became aware of a querulous ‘old man’, with many of the familiar and famous local physicists dangling uncomfortably in attendance. I nudged my neighbor and asked, “Who is that guy?” “that’s Titterton’” came the reply, my quizzical look elicited an additional “Sir Ernest Titterton, ex ANU nuclear physics prof, pro-nuclear advocate, Oliphant’s best protegee.” I knew that asking who Oliphant was would be displaying my ignorance more than I cared to at that point.
Upon returning to Melbourne from the conference, a lengthy expedition through the RMIT library microfiche catalogue revealed a recent biography of Mark Oliphant, entitled simply enough; Oliphant: the life and times of Sir Mark Oliphant. I was a more humble and somewhat chastened graduate physicist who finished reading this book some days later.
Just under a year later, in October 1984, I began my own scientific adventures in England, 57 years after Mark Oliphant began his in October 1927. Oliphant graduated from the University of Adelaide, I from RMIT, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship, I applied for one - and was awarded a Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship, he went to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, my lab was in the Cockcroft Building at the University of Salford, Oliphant studied under fellow antipodean Sir Ernest Rutherford, I studied with Professor Dave Armour, Oliphant’s thesis was; The neutralization of positive ions at metal surfaces, and the emission of secondary electrons (1929), mine was; Low energy ion scattering from GaAs(001) (1989), at Cambridge he was co-discoverer of deuterium, tritium, helium-3, at Salford I did some very exquisite low-energy ion surface experiments, after ten years at Cambridge Oliphant was offered the Poynting Chair of Physics at the University of Birmingham, after six and a bit years at Salford I returned to Australia as an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow. Hopefully by about now you recognise that Oliphant was a cut above the ordinary physicists and I can leave behind my comparison and stick to Oliphant’s story.
A fascinating side to the Oliphant story is how much he achieved and how well he was regarded - despite being thwarted in his later career by time and circumstance. His Birmingham dream of being at the cutting edge of physics by building a ‘cyclotron’ - an accelerator that could produce 25 million-volt particles - the biggest and most powerful in Europe. “only Oliphant would want to build one so big”, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr was overheard to remark. This was followed by an even more revolutionary synchrotron design accelerator. This, post Rutherford, “show of his own” was interrupted by war with Germany.
While the building of the synchrotron progressed at a reduced pace during these years Oliphant threw himself into the war-effort. In the autumn of 1938 Oliphant was bought into the small circle of experts trying to make practicable Britain’s best kept secret - radar, or as it was known at the time R.D.F. (Radio Detection Finding). By 1938 a primitive radar net had been erected around the southern and eastern shores of Britain to guard the approaches across the Channel. Oliphant’s team developed the ‘magnetron’, a new type of microwave emitter that took Radar from being, a possibility, to the deciding factor, firstly, in the Battle of Britain, to the most significant weapon the Germans never had.
Oliphants war efforts, significantly, did not stop at radar development. Once the magnetron had reached a stage where engineering and manufacture were the key elements, Oliphant shifted his major focus to bringing nuclear physics onto the battlefield. From late 1943 he worked closely with Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory developing the uranium separation technique that delivered enough fissile material to make the first three nuclear bombs.
When the war ended, Oliphant, now back at Birmingham, was approached the Australian Labor Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, on how best to establish, in Canberra, “some sort of new national research institute or post-graduate university.” He was approached because his fame reached a new peak when his part in the atomic bomb project became well known.
His revulsion against actual use of the bomb on the Japanese people, and his enthusiasm for what he then saw as the limitless potential for human welfare for nuclear power applied to peaceful development, commended him to the Australian Labor Party leaders.
Oliphant then became one of the high profile expatriate scholars, along with Howard Florey, the historian Keith Hancock and New Zealand born anthropologist Raymond Firth, enlisted as academic advisers in the UK to the new national university. Early in 1947 Oliphant was offered the Directorship of the Research School of Physical Sciences at the Australian National University; it was July 1950, with his accelerators in Birmingham still incomplete, that Oliphant left for Australia to: “endeavour to create in Australia conditions for work in science which will enable at least some of the good men to return without losing all of the advantages of the scientific way of life in England.”
What followed were 15 years of academic frustration intermingled with critical triumphs. In 1954 Oliphant was instrumental in creating the Australian Academy of Sciences. Even if his own Particle Physics department at ANU was not as successful as envisaged his tenure as Director created a thriving and stimulating new academic environment in post-war Australia. In terms of original research, Oliphant was at his most productive in the 1930s. A 1932 picture of the Cavendish laboratory, 37 researchers, has eight current or future Nobel Laureates; an elite group of minds. Oliphant had an interesting insight on his own most significant achievement:
I don’t believe I have any achievement. What I have found in science is a way of life, a way of thinking, a relationship with other people that has been very precious to me. This, I think, is what has kept me going. Now, in my old age , I find myself worrying ceaselessly at the destructive effects of science - at the fact that science has placed in the hands of man the ability to commit suicide. When I was young, I was convinced that knowledge, properly applied, could solve all the material problems of the world. However, in my naivety, I forgot that social problems can be solved only by people as a whole. I still think, indeed I know, that science can save mankind, but only with the willing co-operation of man.
Not surprisingly, after his 1964 retirement from academic life, Oliphant was excited by the 1968 offer to become Governor of South Australia. Two, quick, changes of Government meant that it was 1971 before Oliphant took up the position of Queen’s representative for the State of South Australia. Premier Dunstan was at that time approaching the peak of his power and popularity. Oliphants acceptance letter did warn Dunstan:
While I would endeavour to preserve the dignity of my post, and carry out my constitutional duties, I am sure that your Government will appreciate that my approach may differ considerably from the accepted norm.
As Governor of South Australia, Oliphant partly succeeded because ordinary citizens loved a Vice-Regal figure who spoke his mind bluntly, breaking almost every rule laid down for Governors during the previous 100 years; rules expressly designed to keep them out of trouble. Despite this, or perhaps even because of this, Oliphant was regarded at the end of his term of office as the most successful Governor in the history of the State.
In 1986, immersed at the University of Salford, deep into my own PhD experiments, I ordered a copy of this book. The somewhat bemused book shop attendant said it could take a while to get here from Australia - the six months wait was worth it. Oliphant’s story carried me through some tough times of my own at Salford. Oliphant was a great scientist, humanitarian, and Australian: we could all do with celebrating a few more of those. This biography of Oliphant by Cockburn and Ellyard is a worthy example of such a celebration.
This review was first published at: http://dragonlaughing.tumblr.com/post...
Upon returning to Melbourne from the conference, a lengthy expedition through the RMIT library microfiche catalogue revealed a recent biography of Mark Oliphant, entitled simply enough; Oliphant: the life and times of Sir Mark Oliphant. I was a more humble and somewhat chastened graduate physicist who finished reading this book some days later.
Just under a year later, in October 1984, I began my own scientific adventures in England, 57 years after Mark Oliphant began his in October 1927. Oliphant graduated from the University of Adelaide, I from RMIT, he was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship, I applied for one - and was awarded a Commonwealth Postgraduate Scholarship, he went to the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, my lab was in the Cockcroft Building at the University of Salford, Oliphant studied under fellow antipodean Sir Ernest Rutherford, I studied with Professor Dave Armour, Oliphant’s thesis was; The neutralization of positive ions at metal surfaces, and the emission of secondary electrons (1929), mine was; Low energy ion scattering from GaAs(001) (1989), at Cambridge he was co-discoverer of deuterium, tritium, helium-3, at Salford I did some very exquisite low-energy ion surface experiments, after ten years at Cambridge Oliphant was offered the Poynting Chair of Physics at the University of Birmingham, after six and a bit years at Salford I returned to Australia as an ARC Queen Elizabeth II Fellow. Hopefully by about now you recognise that Oliphant was a cut above the ordinary physicists and I can leave behind my comparison and stick to Oliphant’s story.
A fascinating side to the Oliphant story is how much he achieved and how well he was regarded - despite being thwarted in his later career by time and circumstance. His Birmingham dream of being at the cutting edge of physics by building a ‘cyclotron’ - an accelerator that could produce 25 million-volt particles - the biggest and most powerful in Europe. “only Oliphant would want to build one so big”, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr was overheard to remark. This was followed by an even more revolutionary synchrotron design accelerator. This, post Rutherford, “show of his own” was interrupted by war with Germany.
While the building of the synchrotron progressed at a reduced pace during these years Oliphant threw himself into the war-effort. In the autumn of 1938 Oliphant was bought into the small circle of experts trying to make practicable Britain’s best kept secret - radar, or as it was known at the time R.D.F. (Radio Detection Finding). By 1938 a primitive radar net had been erected around the southern and eastern shores of Britain to guard the approaches across the Channel. Oliphant’s team developed the ‘magnetron’, a new type of microwave emitter that took Radar from being, a possibility, to the deciding factor, firstly, in the Battle of Britain, to the most significant weapon the Germans never had.
Oliphants war efforts, significantly, did not stop at radar development. Once the magnetron had reached a stage where engineering and manufacture were the key elements, Oliphant shifted his major focus to bringing nuclear physics onto the battlefield. From late 1943 he worked closely with Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley Radiation Laboratory developing the uranium separation technique that delivered enough fissile material to make the first three nuclear bombs.
When the war ended, Oliphant, now back at Birmingham, was approached the Australian Labor Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, on how best to establish, in Canberra, “some sort of new national research institute or post-graduate university.” He was approached because his fame reached a new peak when his part in the atomic bomb project became well known.
His revulsion against actual use of the bomb on the Japanese people, and his enthusiasm for what he then saw as the limitless potential for human welfare for nuclear power applied to peaceful development, commended him to the Australian Labor Party leaders.
Oliphant then became one of the high profile expatriate scholars, along with Howard Florey, the historian Keith Hancock and New Zealand born anthropologist Raymond Firth, enlisted as academic advisers in the UK to the new national university. Early in 1947 Oliphant was offered the Directorship of the Research School of Physical Sciences at the Australian National University; it was July 1950, with his accelerators in Birmingham still incomplete, that Oliphant left for Australia to: “endeavour to create in Australia conditions for work in science which will enable at least some of the good men to return without losing all of the advantages of the scientific way of life in England.”
What followed were 15 years of academic frustration intermingled with critical triumphs. In 1954 Oliphant was instrumental in creating the Australian Academy of Sciences. Even if his own Particle Physics department at ANU was not as successful as envisaged his tenure as Director created a thriving and stimulating new academic environment in post-war Australia. In terms of original research, Oliphant was at his most productive in the 1930s. A 1932 picture of the Cavendish laboratory, 37 researchers, has eight current or future Nobel Laureates; an elite group of minds. Oliphant had an interesting insight on his own most significant achievement:
I don’t believe I have any achievement. What I have found in science is a way of life, a way of thinking, a relationship with other people that has been very precious to me. This, I think, is what has kept me going. Now, in my old age , I find myself worrying ceaselessly at the destructive effects of science - at the fact that science has placed in the hands of man the ability to commit suicide. When I was young, I was convinced that knowledge, properly applied, could solve all the material problems of the world. However, in my naivety, I forgot that social problems can be solved only by people as a whole. I still think, indeed I know, that science can save mankind, but only with the willing co-operation of man.
Not surprisingly, after his 1964 retirement from academic life, Oliphant was excited by the 1968 offer to become Governor of South Australia. Two, quick, changes of Government meant that it was 1971 before Oliphant took up the position of Queen’s representative for the State of South Australia. Premier Dunstan was at that time approaching the peak of his power and popularity. Oliphants acceptance letter did warn Dunstan:
While I would endeavour to preserve the dignity of my post, and carry out my constitutional duties, I am sure that your Government will appreciate that my approach may differ considerably from the accepted norm.
As Governor of South Australia, Oliphant partly succeeded because ordinary citizens loved a Vice-Regal figure who spoke his mind bluntly, breaking almost every rule laid down for Governors during the previous 100 years; rules expressly designed to keep them out of trouble. Despite this, or perhaps even because of this, Oliphant was regarded at the end of his term of office as the most successful Governor in the history of the State.
In 1986, immersed at the University of Salford, deep into my own PhD experiments, I ordered a copy of this book. The somewhat bemused book shop attendant said it could take a while to get here from Australia - the six months wait was worth it. Oliphant’s story carried me through some tough times of my own at Salford. Oliphant was a great scientist, humanitarian, and Australian: we could all do with celebrating a few more of those. This biography of Oliphant by Cockburn and Ellyard is a worthy example of such a celebration.
This review was first published at: http://dragonlaughing.tumblr.com/post...
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review