The Fly in the Cathedral

Download or read book The Fly in the Cathedral written by Brian Cathcart and published by Penguin Classics. This book was released on 2005 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The splitting of the atom, performed in a shabby Cambridge lab in April 1932, was a triumph of ingenuity over adversity. John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, under the stern gaze of the brilliantly eccentric Lord Rutherford, cobbled together handmade or recycled components - while American rivals had state-of-the-art equipment - to make one of the great scientific breakthroughs of all time. In Brian Cathcart's hands, this remarkable tale of success on a shoe string - packed with larger-than-life characters, struggles against the odds, personal tragedy, love and bloody-minded determination - makes for one of the most inspiring stories of scientific derring-do ever told.