Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

He said 'You wouldn't tell the Nazis?'

I said 'Of course I wouldn't tell the Nazis!'

He said 'And you wouldn't tell me.'

I said 'Oh I'm just going through the motions of what I think is right! What does it matter if you have nothing to tell me about Kapitsa?'

For Christmas that year we went, you and I, to Holy Island, or Lindisfarne — a piece of land off the Northumberland coast stuck out like an antenna into the sea. I had wanted to go there because it was one of the places to which, centuries ago, people had been blown across the dark sea in little boats; they had landed, had put down roots; they had built monasteries and places of light: where had they come from, where were they going? We stayed in a boarding-house, you and I. We were the only guests. I thought — Here we are, on these mudflats: there is plenty of room at the inn.

There was a Nativity scene set up in the village church: Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the child were all looking at an empty space on the ground just outside the framework of the setting. I thought — It is as if there had been some sort of nest there: the bird has flown.

You said 'I used to think how important it was that there should be a reconciliation between Christians and Jews.'

I said 'And don't you think that now?'

You said 'I think we're always parts of the same thing.'

There was a walk across fields to huge sand-dunes and a beach to which it seemed only birds ever came; they hurried on wet sand with their reflections underneath them. I thought — It might be they who carry strange seeds in their crops; from these seeds, when they drop them, a new race of men might grow. Where would they have come from, where would they be going? There was a hard rain driving in from the sea. Donald Hodge had gone for Christmas across the sea to Germany, then Denmark. He had gone there in response to rumours about what might be about to be revealed of the secrets of the atom. Perhaps was it from this that a strange new race of men might spring — as it was supposed to have done that first Christmas years ago, but not quite: the seeds for 2000 years having remained dormant as if under snow. I said to you 'I don't think it has ever really been seen, the point of that story.' You said 'The point is, what is a story?' I said 'Perhaps something the effect of which, in spite of its not being seen, grows.'

At night it was so cold that it was as if spray were breaking over

us where we clung to each other on our rock, and all the devils that had been sent out into the world were rushing back to us for warmth, for protection.

It was just after Christmas that I got a telegram from Donald Hodge asking me to return home urgently; he said something of great importance had occurred of which he could not tell me in a telegram. I thought — Oh indeed, some parturition? Some projected slaughter of innocents? Then — What we need, perhaps, is a story about stories.

— Once upon a time, children, when it came to be necessary to eat the fruit of that second tree of Life -

We left Holy Island, you and I, and went back to the laboratory. There we learned the story of what had actually happened across the sea that Christmas. I thought — It would be a technical problem, certainly, to put it into words.

Once upon a time, children, there were two scientists who were working in a laboratory in Berlin. One was called Otto Hahn and the other Lise Meitner. One was a chemist and one was a physicist; one was a man and one was a woman; one was a Gentile and the other was a Jew. They had been working together for many years to try to understand the secrets of the atom. Then in the summer of 1938 their partnership was broken up: Lise Meitner, an Austrian Jew, was forced to leave Austria/Germany: she went to Sweden to be an exile in a foreign country. Otto Hahn stayed behind in the laboratory in Berlin; he carried on with the experiments. He had been the one to set up and tabulate the experiments; Lise Meitner had been the one to try to understand what they might mean. Otto Hahn found that now more than ever the experiments made no sense: the nuclei of uranium seemed to be being transmuted into the nuclei of a much lighter element; and what understanding was there for this? There had, of course, been the theory that the nucleus of an atom might be held together like a drop of water; but although it could conceivably be imagined that a drop of water might split into two almost equal parts, there was still no mathematics to explain how this might occur; and what could be said scientifically about what could not be represented by mathematics? Otto Hahn wrote to Lise Meitner to tell her of the results of his experiments: she was, after all, the one who might be able to explain them, even if in exile. This was Christmas, 1938. Then Lise Meitner was joined in Sweden by her nephew, Otto Frisch: Otto Frisch was also an exile; also a physicist and a Jew. On Christmas Eve Lise Meitner

and Otto Frisch went for a walk by the sea. There was snow on the ground: would this have reminded them of that very first Christmas years ago? Lise Meitner told Otto Frisch of the results of the experiments in Berlin: of the uranium nucleus that seemed to transmute itself into much lighter parts. They knew, of course, that if this were true (what a miracle!) — if the uranium nucleus were split into anything like two — then these parts, being of the same electrical charge, would repel each other with enormous force: then indeed there would be released energy locked up in the heart of an atom — a force for terrible creation or destruction. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch sat down in the snow: by the waters of a cold grey Babylon they — what? — held pencils and pieces of paper on their knees; they worked on the mathematics. The mathematics for once

— perhaps it was the cold; perhaps it was the urgency of being in exile — did not seem too difficult. The internal charges within the unstable nucleus of an uranium atom were such that it was likely on its own to be on the point of overcoming the surface tension that held it together anyway: for it to split into two might after all indeed take no more than the impact of a neutron. And then — if the nucleus of a uranium atom did in fact split into the two much lighter nuclei of a barium and a krypton atom, which was what Otto Hahn was suggesting — then indeed there would be the violent repulsion and the release of force. But still — where was it, as it were, that the energy for this force came from? For in mathematics something does not come out of nothing. Then it was worked out

— since the sum of the weights of barium and krypton nuclei are slightly less than the weight of a single uranium nucleus, some mass must have been lost in the process; and so what could have happened to this mass except that it must have been transformed into energy? The formula by which mass was transformed into energy was known. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch sat with their pencils and bits of paper on their knees. And so, yes — abracadabra! — it was seen that the mass that had been lost in the fission process was, when transformed, almost precisely the amount of energy which would be involved in the two new nuclei repelling each other with enormous force; and it was indeed exactly the amount of energy (though this was not seen till slightly later) — if it could be supposed that as part of the explosion were emitted also two or three loose neutrons — which, if suitably controlled, might then, of course, be used for the exploding of further uranium nuclei — and so on — in geometrical progression or chain reaction to whatever strength of

explosion might be required. And what sort of explosion might be imagined to be required — for creation or destruction — by two such exiles in a strange country on a cold Christmas Eve?