Research in Germany on the Technical Application of Atomic Energy*

Abstract

EVEN ten years ago, physicists were well aware that the utilization of atomic energy could not be realized without a fundamental extension of scientific knowledge. In spite of the remarkable progress in experimental nuclear physics which followed the introduction of high-voltage equipment and the invention of the cyclotron, no physical phenomenon was known, even as late as 1937, which offered the remotest possibility of exploiting the enormous quantities of energy lying latent in atomic nuclei.