Four generations of nuclear physicists

Abstract

TO review the course of nuclear physics over many decades of time in the space of an hour’s talk and yet leave time for predicting its future requires a rather impressionistic technique in the presentation. I have chosen as my time markers the human generations which, as I hope you will see, also mark distinct phases in the development of the subject. Conventionally, a generation spans twenty-five years; hence a hundred years covers four generations. The first generation was that of Rutherford and Bohr, followed in the second generation by Heisenberg, Pauli, Blackett, Fermi and their contemporaries, many of whom are here today. The third generation is represented by the nuclear physicists of my own age and finally the fourth generation are those young physicists, now about 25 years old, on whom the development of this subject will depend in the next twenty-five years. I will try to trace through these generations four main themes each of which, in different ways, affects the future of nuclear physics. Firstly, and most importantly, the progress of the research itself; secondly, the development of the research apparatus; thirdly, the evolution of the organization of the research and lastly, the relationships between nuclear physics and the industrial societies which support it.