|
|
| Hungarian-born
US physicist who, in 1934, was one of the first scientists to realize that
nuclear fission, or atom splitting, could lead to a chain reaction releasing
enormous amounts of instantaneous energy. He emigrated to the USA in 1938
and there influenced Albert Einstein to advise President Roosevelt to begin
the nuclear-arms programme. After World War II he turned his attention to
the newly emerging field of molecular biology. |