Frases de Marcus Oliphant

Sir Marcus Laurence Elwin "Mark" Oliphant, AC, KBE, FRS, FAA foi um físico e humanitário australiano que teve um papel de destaque na primeira demonstração experimental da fusão nuclear e também no desenvolvimento de armamento nuclear.

Nascido e crescido em Adelaide, na região Sul da Austrália, Oliphant licenciou-se na Universidade de Adelaide em 1922. Em 1927, recebeu uma bolsa de estudos para premiar a investigação que levou a cabo sobre o mercúrio, viajando, depois, para Inglaterra, onde estudou sob a supervisão de Sir Ernest Rutherford no Laboratório Cavendish da Universidade de Cambridge. Ali, utilizou um acelerador de partículas para disparar um núcleo de hidrogénio pesado contra vários alvos. Descobriu o núcleo de hélio-3 e trítio . Também descobriu que quando reagem entre eles, as partículas que são libertadas têm muito mais energia do que aquela com que começaram. A energia foi libertada a partir do interior dos núcleos, e ele apercebeu-se que isso era o resultado de uma fusão nuclear.

Oliphant deixou o Laboratório Cavendish em 1937 para ser professor de Física na Universidade de Birmingham. Tentou construir um cíclotron de Predefinição:Convert/inch na universidade, mas aquela foi adiada por causa do início da Segunda Grande Guerra na Europa em 1939. Oliphant fez parte do desenvolvimento do [radar]], liderando um grupo na Universidade de Birmingham que incluía John Randall e Harry Boot. Criaram um novo desenho radical, o magnetrão, que tornou o radar de microondas possível. Oliphant também fez parte da Comissão MAUD, a qual relatou, em Julho de 1941, que uma bomba atómica não só era possível de ser construída, mas que também podia ser produzida em inícios de 1943. Oliphant teve um papel-chave na divulgação desta descoberta nos Estados Unidos, dando assim início ao chamado Projecto Manhattan. Mais tarde, em plena guerra, trabalhou com o seu amigo Ernest Lawrence no Laboratório de Radiação do MIT em Berkeley, California, onde desenvolveu a separação isotópica electromagnética.

Depois da guerra, Oliphant regressou à Austrália para ser o primeiro director da Escola de Investigação de Ciências Físicas e Engenharia na nova Universidade Nacional da Austrália, onde deu início ao desenvolvimento e construção do maior gerador unipolar do mundo . Reformou-se em 1976, mas foi nomeado Governador da Austrália do Sul por escolha do primeiro-ministro, Don Dunstan. Oliphant fez parte da formação do partido político Democratas Australianos, e presidiu à reunião em Melbourne em 1977, a qual marcou o lançamento do partido. Depois de ver a sua esposa Rosa sofrer com uma doença prolongada, acabando por falecer em 1987, tornou-se um defensor da eutanásia voluntária. Oliphant morreu em Canberra em 2000. Wikipedia  

✵ 8. Outubro 1901 – 14. Julho 2000
Marcus Oliphant photo
Marcus Oliphant: 6   citações 0   Curtidas

Marcus Oliphant: Frases em inglês

“I believe that science is best left to scientists, that you cannot have managers or directors of science, it's got to be carried out and done by people with ideas, people with concepts, people who feel in their bones that they want to go ahead and develop this, that, or the other concept which occurs to them.”

Fonte: Portraits in Science interviews (1994), p. 34
Contexto: I've lost any belief I ever had in scientific policy. I don't think you can have scientific policy. I think science is something like weeds, it just grows of its own accord … and if you've got the right atmosphere, the right situation within universities or within places like CSIRO, then it grows and develops of its own accord. And I believe that science is best left to scientists, that you cannot have managers or directors of science, it's got to be carried out and done by people with ideas, people with concepts, people who feel in their bones that they want to go ahead and develop this, that, or the other concept which occurs to them.

“I, right from the beginning, have been terribly worried by the existence of nuclear weapons and very much against their use.”

On potentials for misuse of nuclear power, p. 31
Portraits in Science interviews (1994)
Contexto: I, who had been in favour of nuclear energy for generating electricity … I suddenly realised that anybody who has a nuclear reactor can extract the plutonium from the reactor and make nuclear weapons, so that a country which has a nuclear reactor can, at any moment that it wants to, become a nuclear weapons power. And I, right from the beginning, have been terribly worried by the existence of nuclear weapons and very much against their use.

“We were able to discover two new kinds of atomic species, one was hydrogen of mass 3, unknown until that time, and the other helium of mass 3, also unknown.”

On his research on atomic nuclei with Ernest Rutherford, p. 24
Portraits in Science interviews (1994)
Contexto: We were able to discover two new kinds of atomic species, one was hydrogen of mass 3, unknown until that time, and the other helium of mass 3, also unknown. … We were able to show that heavy hydrogen nuclei, that is to say the cores of heavy hydrogen atoms, could be made to react with one another to produce a good deal of energy and new kinds of atom. …Of course, we had no idea whatever that this would one day be applied to make hydrogen bombs. Our curiosity was just curiosity about the structure of the nucleus of the atom, and the discovery of these reactions was purely, as the Americans would put it, coincidental.

“I was a member of a group that was led by Niels Bohr, after the test in Alamogordo, that was very much opposed to the use of this new weapon on civilian cities. … But by and large we were in a minority, but a rather distinguished minority.”

On efforts to avoid civilian deaths in the first uses of atomic weapons, p. 32
Portraits in Science interviews (1994)
Contexto: I was a member of a group that was led by Niels Bohr, after the test in Alamogordo, that was very much opposed to the use of this new weapon on civilian cities. … But by and large we were in a minority, but a rather distinguished minority. But the trouble was that this second memorandum to Roosevelt went off to him, but he never read it, he died before he read it. And Truman, of course, was a different kettle of fish.

“Of course, we had no idea whatever that this would one day be applied to make hydrogen bombs. Our curiosity was just curiosity about the structure of the nucleus of the atom, and the discovery of these reactions was purely, as the Americans would put it, coincidental.”

On his research on atomic nuclei with Ernest Rutherford, p. 24
Portraits in Science interviews (1994)
Contexto: We were able to discover two new kinds of atomic species, one was hydrogen of mass 3, unknown until that time, and the other helium of mass 3, also unknown. … We were able to show that heavy hydrogen nuclei, that is to say the cores of heavy hydrogen atoms, could be made to react with one another to produce a good deal of energy and new kinds of atom. …Of course, we had no idea whatever that this would one day be applied to make hydrogen bombs. Our curiosity was just curiosity about the structure of the nucleus of the atom, and the discovery of these reactions was purely, as the Americans would put it, coincidental.

“I've lost any belief I ever had in scientific policy. I don't think you can have scientific policy. I think science is something like weeds, it just grows of its own accord”

Fonte: Portraits in Science interviews (1994), p. 34
Contexto: I've lost any belief I ever had in scientific policy. I don't think you can have scientific policy. I think science is something like weeds, it just grows of its own accord … and if you've got the right atmosphere, the right situation within universities or within places like CSIRO, then it grows and develops of its own accord. And I believe that science is best left to scientists, that you cannot have managers or directors of science, it's got to be carried out and done by people with ideas, people with concepts, people who feel in their bones that they want to go ahead and develop this, that, or the other concept which occurs to them.