Szilard's eureka moment - Deepstash
Szilard's eureka moment

Szilard's eureka moment

Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-born Jew, fled Germany for the UK two months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor.

At the time, James Chadwick just discovered the neutron. Not long after, Cambridge physicists split the atom by bombarding a lithium nucleus with protons. In this, they confirmed Albert Einstein's idea that mass and energy are different forms of the same thing.

In 1933, Szilard thought that if you could find an atom that was split by neutrons, and in the process, release two or more neutrons, then the mass would emit a huge amount of energy.

22

365 reads

CURATED FROM

IDEAS CURATED BY

cwood

Award-winning organizer.

The idea is part of this collection:

Centers of Progress

Learn more about history with this collection

The historical significance of urban centers

The impact of cultural and technological advances

The role of urban centers in shaping society

Related collections

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Personalized microlearning

100+ Learning Journeys

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates