Józef Rotblat

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Józef Rotblat (photo on his Los-Alamos ID card during the Second World War)

Sir Józef Rotblat (born November 4, 1908 in Warsaw , † August 31, 2005 in London ; also: Josef or Joseph Rotblat ) was a Polish physicist "with a British passport", which he always emphasized. As a nuclear physicist, he was initially involved in the development of the first atomic bomb , but then left the project in 1944 due to ethical concerns. He was one of the co-founders of the Pugwash Conferences and fought for the abolition of all nuclear weapons all his life. On behalf of the Pugwash conferences , he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 .

Life

Early years and academic activity

As the son of a family of Jewish origin impoverished during World War I , Rotblat worked as an electrician during the day at the age of 15; in the evening he studied physics. He was later awarded a scholarship to study at the Free University of Poland , where he received his master's degree in 1932. From 1933 he worked as a research assistant in the radiological laboratory of the Warsaw Science Society, which was headed by his sponsor Ludwikwertestein , and in 1937 became director of the Polish Institute for Atomic Science at the Free University of Poland . In 1938 he received his doctorate in physics from the University of Warsaw . In 1939 he received a scholarship abroad and went to Great Britain in August, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War .

In 1939 he began working with James Chadwick at the University of Liverpool on an atomic bomb project, which took him to Los Alamos with Chadwick in 1943 to participate in the Manhattan Project . In November 1944, after it was clear that Germany could not complete an atomic bomb, Rotblat was the only scientist to leave the project and immediately returned to England.

After the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , he became a declared opponent of nuclear armament. From 1945 to 1949 he was director of the Nuclear Physics Research Center in Liverpool. From 1950 to 1976 he was professor of physics at the University of London and the medical school of St Bartholomew's Hospital , became the hospital 's chief physicist and studied the use of radioactive radiation in cancer therapy.

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

Together with Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell , he was one of the initiators of the Russell Einstein Manifesto and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs , known as the Pugwash Conferences, at which scientists from all over the world regularly discuss issues such as international security, of disarmament and strategies to avoid nuclear wars. In addition to annual conferences , “Pugwash International” organizes various workshops on topics such as nuclear disarmament , biological and chemical weapons , regional conflicts, the proliferation of weapon technologies and the responsibility of natural scientists. Since it was founded, over 200 conferences have taken place, at which arms control and conflict settlement were discussed in particular.

The results of the Pugwash conferences play an important role in international peacekeeping agreements. Their results were a decisive factor in the 1963 nuclear test stop agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union , the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty , the Anti-Missile Treaty of 1972 and the ban on chemical and biological weapons of 1972 and 1973. They also advised the SALT disarmament talks from 1969 to 1979 as well as in the preparation of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). With the end of the Cold War , the range of topics also expanded to include sustainable environmental protection.

From the first meeting in 1957 to 1973 Rotblat was General Secretary of the Pugwash Conferences, and in 1988 he became its President. In 1972 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Further work

Józef Rotblat was also consulted as an expert for the Year of Peace (1986) for the United Nations (UN). He was responsible for the World Health Organization (WHO) reports on the effects of nuclear war on health and healthcare from 1984 to 1987 .

Rotblat is the author of over 300 publications in the fields of nuclear physics, radiation biology, nuclear weapons, disarmament, the Pugwash movement and social responsibility in science . 1995, fifty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Joseph Rotblat was together with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded. Reason: "for decades of worldwide commitment to the abolition of all nuclear weapons". In 1998 he became Queen Elizabeth II. To Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George beaten and leads since then the title "Sir".

Despite the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, he advocated collaboration between scientists from West and East. Based on the Hippocratic Oath , he was convinced that scientists should have their own moral code . When asked how he keeps his youthful vigor, Rotblat gladly replied: “You have to have a goal and persevere in pursuing it” ( keep on going ).

Józef Rotblat died on August 31, 2005 at the age of 96. Until his death, he was the oldest living Nobel Prize winner since the death of the physics prize winner Hans Bethe on March 6, 2005.

Fonts

  • Joseph Rotblat: Radiation Effects when Using Nuclear Weapons. Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-87061-544-3

literature

Web links

Commons : Joseph Rotblat  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Rotblat's curriculum vitae on nobelprize.org
personal data
SURNAME Rotblat, Józef
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rotblat, Joseph; Rotblat, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish physicist, co-founder of the Pugwash Conferences and Nobel Peace Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw , Poland
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 2005
Place of death London