This book provides a rounded biography of Franz (later Sir Francis)
Simon, his early life in Germany, his move to Oxford in 1933, and his
experimental contributions to low temperature physics approximating
absolute zero. After 1939 he switched his research to nuclear physics,
and is credited with solving the problem of uranium isotope separation
by gaseous diffusion for the British nuclear programme Tube Alloys.The
volume is distinctive for its inclusion of source materials not
available to previous researchers, such as Simon's diary and his
correspondence with his wife, and for a fresh, well-informed insider
voice on the five-power nuclear rivalry of the war years.The
work also draws on a relatively mature nuclear literature to attempt a
comparison and evaluation of the five nuclear rivals in wider political
and military context, and to identify the factors, or groups of factors,
that can explain the results.Readership: The
general reader interested in the history of the Second World War,
wartime science, and weapons development. Historians of physics,
especially low temperature research.