Joseph Rotblat
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2008-07-09T15:14:08Z
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{{Infobox_Scientist
| name = Joseph Rotblat KCMG CBE FRS {{click|image=Nobel medal dsc06171.jpg|link=Nobel Peace Prize|width=20px|height=20px}}
| image = Josef Rotblat ID badge.png
| image_size = 130px
| caption = ID badge photo from [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]], 1944.
| birth_date = {{birth date|1908|11|4|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Warsaw]], [[Poland]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2005|8|31|1908|11|4|df=yes}}
| death_place = [[London]]
| residence = Poland until 1938, United Kingdom afterwards
| nationality = [[Poland|Polish]], [[United Kingdom|British]]
| field = [[Physics]]
| work_institution = Radiological Laboratory of Scientific Society of Warsaw 1933-1937<br/> [[Free University of Poland]] 1937-1939<br/> [[University of Liverpool]], 1939-1949<br/> [[St Bartholomew's Hospital, London]] 1949-1976
| alma_mater = [[Free University of Poland]]<br/>[[University of Warsaw]]<br/>[[University of Liverpool]].
| known_for = Medical physics; campaigner for the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
| societies = Fellow of the Royal Society; co-founder and member of governing board of the [[SIPRI|Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]]; member of the Advisory Committee on Medical Research of the [[World Health Organization]].
| prizes = Albert Einstein Peace Prize 1992; Nobel Peace Prize 1995.
| religion = [[Humanism|Humanist]]
| spouse = Tola Rotblat
}}
'''Sir Joseph Rotblat''', [[Order of St Michael and St George|KCMG]], [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]], [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]], ([[4 November]], [[1908]] – [[31 August]], [[2005]]) was a [[Poland|Polish]]-born and [[United Kingdom|British]]-naturalised [[physicist]]. His work on [[nuclear fallout]] was a major contribution to the agreement of the [[Partial Test Ban Treaty]]. A signatory of the [[Russell-Einstein manifesto]], he was secretary general of the [[Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs]] from its founding until 1973. In conjunction with the Pugwash Conferences, he received the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] in 1995 for their efforts towards [[nuclear disarmament]].
==Biography==
Rotblat was born '''Józef Rotblat''' in [[Lodz]] or [[Warsaw]], the fifth of seven children to a paper merchant. His father's business was ruined by [[World War I]], and the family was reduced to selling [[vodka]] they illegally distilled.<ref name=telegraph>[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/02/db0202.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/09/02/ixportal.html Obituary, ''The Daily Telegraph''], 2 September 2005</ref> Despite not receiving a formal education and working as a domestic [[electrician]], he managed to win a free place in the [[physics]] department of the [[Free University of Poland]], studying in the evenings, and then a position as a junior demonstrator. He received a [[Academic degree|MA]] in 1932 and became a Research Fellow at the Radiological Laboratory of Scientific Society of Warsaw in 1933. He became Assistant Director of the [[Atomic Physics Institute]] at the Free University of Poland in 1937 and became Doctor of Physics at the [[University of Warsaw]] in 1938.
In early 1939, he went to the [[University of Liverpool]] to work with Sir [[James Chadwick]], the discoverer of the [[neutron]]. He worked mainly on the energy of neutrons emitted during the fission of uranium nuclei. In August 1939 Chadwick offered Rotblat the [[Oliver Joseph Lodge|Oliver Lodge]] Fellowship<ref name=times>[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1760612,00.html Obituary, ''The Times''], 2 September, 2005</ref> and he became a [[lecturer]] in 1940. Because his initial stipend was small, he had left his wife, Tola Gryn, in Poland. In the summer of 1939, shortly before Germany invaded Poland to begin [[World War II]], he returned to Poland to bring his wife to England, but she was recovering from appendicitis and could not travel. He returned alone two days before the German invasion, after which he tried repeatedly to get his wife out of the country, but each time the borders were closed ahead of her. He never saw her again; she was among the many Poles who lost their lives during the German occupation.<ref>[http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-rotblat.html Peace Pledge Union] biography</ref> Rotblat never remarried.
==The Manhattan Project==
While still in Poland, Rotblat had realised that his work could be used to produce a bomb. He first thought that he should "put the whole thing out of my mind",<ref name=Abe>Irwin Abrhams [http://www.irwinabrams.com/books/excerpts/annual95.html]</ref> but with the rise of Nazi Germany he continued because he thought the only way to prevent Nazi Germany from using a nuclear bomb was if Britain had one to act as a deterrent. After the start of the war, he starting working explicitly with Chadwick on bomb work.<ref name=Abe/>
Early in 1944 Rotblat went with Chadwick's group to work on the [[Manhattan Project]] to build the first [[atomic bomb]]s. The usual condition for people to work on the Manhattan Project was that they had to become U.S. citizens or British subjects. Rotblat declined and the condition was waived.<ref name=telegraph/> He continued to have strong reservations about the use of science to develop such a devastating weapon and was shocked in March 1944, at a private dinner at the Chadwick's, to hear [[Leslie Groves]] say "Of course, the real purpose in making the bomb was to subdue the Soviets".<ref name=Abe/> By the end of 1944 it was also apparent that Germany had abandoned the development of its own bomb and Rotblat asked to leave the project. Chadwick was then shown a security dossier in which Rotblat was accused of being a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] spy and that, having learnt to fly at Los Alamos, he was suspected of wanting to join the [[Royal Air Force]] so that he could fly to Poland and defect to the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name=sal/><ref name=times/> In addition, he was accused of visiting someone in [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] and leaving them a blank [[cheque]] to finance the formation of a communist cell.<ref name=Abe/>
In fact, Rotblat was able to show that much of the information within the dossier had been fabricated.<ref name=Abe/> In addition, FBI records show that in 1950, Rotblat's friend in Santa Fe was tracked down in California, and she flatly denied the story: in fact, the cheque had never been cashed and had been left to pay for items not available in the U.K. during the war. Despite this, Rotblat was not permitted to re-enter the United States until 1964.<ref name=Abe/> In addition, on departure from New York, his research notes and correspondence disappeared.<ref name=sal>Alan Salmon, ''Insight'', p.15, University of Liverpool (2006)</ref><ref name=times/> Rotblat was the only physicist to leave the Manhattan Project on the grounds of conscience,<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/sep/02/obituaries.obituaries Obituary, ''The Guardian''], 2 September, 2005</ref> though others later refused to work on atomic bombs after the defeat of Japan.
==Work on nuclear fall-out==
Rotblat returned to Britain to become senior lecturer and acting director of research of nuclear physics at the [[University of Liverpool]]. He decided not to return to communist Poland and naturalised as a British subject<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1995/rotblat-cv.html]Nobel Prize Curriculum Vitae</ref> and was joined by his mother, sister, and one of his brothers. <ref>[http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/people/pp-rotblat.html]Peace pledge biography</ref> He felt betrayed by the use of atomic weapons against Japan, and campaigned for a three year moratorium of all atomic research.<ref name=Abe/> Rotblat was determined that his research should have only peaceful ends, and so became interested in the medical and biological uses of radiation. In 1949 he became Professor of Physics at [[St Bartholomew's Hospital]] ('St Bart's'), [[London]] (now part of [[Queen Mary, University of London]]),<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.qmul.ac.uk/alumni/alumninetwork/notablealumni/index.html | title = Queen Mary, University of London Notable Alumni and Staff | accessdate = 2007-09-23}}</ref> shortly before receiving his PhD from Liverpool in 1950. He also worked on several official bodies connected with nuclear physics, and arranged a major travelling exhibition for schools on civil nuclear energy, the ''Atom Train''.
At St Bartholomew's Rotblat worked on the effects of radiation on living organisms, especially on ageing and fertility. This led him to an interest in nuclear fallout, especially [[Strontium]] 90 and the safe limits of ionising radiation.<ref name=times/> In 1955, he demonstrated that the contamination caused by the [[Nuclear fallout|fall-out]] after the [[Castle Bravo]] test at [[Bikini Atoll]] [[Nuclear testing|nuclear test]] by the United States would have been far greater than that stated officially. Until then the official line had been that the growth in the strength of atomic bombs was not accompanied by an equivalent growth in radiation released. Japanese scientists who had collected data from a fishing vessel, the ''[[Daigo Fukuryū Maru|Lucky Dragon]]'', which had inadvertently been exposed to fall-out, disagreed with this. Rotblat was able to deduce that the bomb had three stages and showed that the fission phase at the end of the explosion increased the amount of radioactivity by a thousand-fold. Rotblat's paper was taken up by the media, and contributed to the public debate that resulted in the ending of atmospheric tests by the [[Partial Test Ban Treaty]].
==Peace work==
Rotblat believed that scientists should always be concerned with the ethical consequences of their work. He became one of the most prominent critics of the [[nuclear arms race]], was the youngest signatory of the [[Russell-Einstein Manifesto]] in 1955, and chaired the press conference that launched it. After the positive coverage of the manifesto, [[Cyrus S. Eaton|Cyrus Eaton]] offered to fund the influential [[Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs|Pugwash Conferences]]. With [[Bertrand Russell]] and others he organised the first one of these in 1957 and continued to work within their framework until his death. Despite the [[Iron Curtain]] and the [[Cold War]], he advocated establishing links between scientists from the West and East. For this reason the Pugwash conferences were viewed with suspicion. Initially, the British government viewed the conferences as little more than ''“Communist front gatherings”''.<ref name=witt> [http://hnn.us/articles/14428.html]''The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat'', Lawrence S. Wittner, George Mason's University History News Network (2005)</ref> However, he persuaded J.D. Cockcroft, a member of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, to suggest who might be invited to the 1958 conference. He successfully resisted a subsequent attempt to take over the conferences,<ref name=witt/> causing a [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|Foreign Office]] official to write that ''“the difficulty is to get Prof. Rotblat to pay any attention to what we think... He is no doubt jealous of his independence and scientific integrity”'' and that securing ''“a new organizer for the British delegation seems to be the first need, but I do not know if there is any hope of this"''. By the early 1960's the [[Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Defence]] thought the Pugwash Conferences were ''“now a very respectable organization”'' and the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office|Foreign Office]] stated that it had ''"official blessing"'' and that any breakthrough may well originate at such gatherings.<ref name=witt/> In parallel with the Pugwash Conferences, Rotblat also joined with Einstein, Oppenheimer, Russell and other concerned scientists to found the [[World Academy of Art and Science]] which was proposed by them in the mid-1950s and formally constituted in 1960. After the breakthrough of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, Rotblat was made a [[Order of the British Empire|CBE]] in 1965.
===Later life===
Rotblat retired from St Bartholemew's in 1976. He believed that scientists have an individual [[moral responsibility]], and just as the [[Hippocratic Oath]] provides a [[code of conduct]] for physicians, he thought that scientists should have their own [[Morality#Moral code|code of moral conduct]]. During his tenure as president of the Pugwash conferences, Rotblat nominated [[Israelis|Israeli]] nuclear technician [[Mordechai Vanunu]] for the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] every year from 1988 to 2004. Vanunu had disclosed the extent of [[Nuclear weapons and Israel|Israel's nuclear weapons programme]], and consequently spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in [[solitary confinement]].
Rotblat campaigned ceaselessly against nuclear weapons. In an interview shortly before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, he expressed his belief that the Russell-Einstein Manifesto still had "great relevance today, after 50 years, particularly in connection with the election of a president in the United States", and above all, with respect to the potential pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons.<ref>[http://www.thecommunity.com/rotblat_full.html Interview] with [[TheCommunity.com]] (2004)</ref><ref>[http://www.medact.org/article_wmd.php?articleID=324] New Year message 2005</ref> Central to his view of the world were the words of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto with which he concluded his acceptance lecture for the [[Nobel prize]] in 1995:<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1995/rotblat-lecture.html Nobel Prize lecture]</ref> [[Russell-Einstein Manifesto#Synopsis|''"Above all, remember your humanity"'']].
Rotblat won the [[Albert Einstein Peace Prize]] in 1992 and was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1995. He was knighted a [[Order of St Michael and St George|KCMG]] in 1998. He served as editor-in-chief of the journal ''Physics in Medicine and Biology,'' and was the president of several institutions and professional associations. He was also a co-founder and member of the governing board of the [[Stockholm International Peace Research Institute]], as well as a member of the Advisory Committee on Medical Research of the [[World Health Organization]].
==Footnotes==
<references/>
==External links==
{{Wikinews|Józef Rotblat, 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies}}
*[http://openvault.wgbh.org/wapina/barcode9411rotblat_4/index.html/ Interview about the Manhattan Project] for the WGBH series, [http://openvault.wgbh.org/series/War+and+Peace+in+the+Nuclear+Age/ War and Peace in the Nuclear Age]
*[http://www.vega.org.uk/video/programme/22 Freeview video interview with Sir Joseph Rotblat by the Vega Science Trust]
* [http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/1995/ Nobel Committee information on Joseph Rotblat]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/opinion/17Rotblat.html?ex=1270785600&en=37bef79604f97228&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland Op-Ed: The 50-Year Shadow] by Joseph Rotblat, ''[[New York Times]]'', [[May 17]], [[2005]].
*[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1995/rotblat-lecture.html Joseph Rotblat – Nobel Lecture]
*[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0902-03.htm Man of Peace Dies: Scientist Who Turned Back on A-bomb Project] ''[[The Guardian]]'' September 2, 2005
* The papers of Joseph Rotblat are currently being processed by the NCUACS, Bath, England [http://www.bath.ac.uk/ncuacs/]
*[http://vega.org.uk/video/programme/153 Interview with Joseph Rotblat recorded in 2005 a few months before he died]
{{Nobel Peace Prize Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{Persondata
|NAME=Rotblat, Joseph
|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Rotblat, Józef (birth name)
|SHORT DESCRIPTION=[[Poland|Polish]]-born [[United Kingdom|British]]-naturalised [[physicist]]
|DATE OF BIRTH=[[4 November]] [[1908]]
|PLACE OF BIRTH=[[Warsaw]], [[Poland]]
|DATE OF DEATH=[[31 August]] [[2005]]
|PLACE OF DEATH=[[London]], [[England]]
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rotblat, Joseph}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:2005 deaths]]
[[Category:Academics of the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital]]
[[Category:British humanists]]
[[Category:British Jews]]
[[Category:British people of Polish descent]]
[[Category:British physicists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Immigrants to the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Jewish scientists]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:Manhattan Project people]]
[[Category:Nobel Peace Prize laureates]]
[[Category:People associated with the University of Liverpool]]
[[Category:Polish Jews]]
[[Category:Polish Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Polish physicists]]
[[Category:Polish scientists]]
[[Category:Radiation health effects researchers]]
[[Category:University of Warsaw alumni]]
[[Category:Polish refugees]]
[[Category:Jewish refugees]]
[[Category:British anti-nuclear weapons activists]]
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