Scientific Research in World War II: What Scientists Did in the War

ISBN-13: 9780710313409 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 256 str.

Peter Garside

Opis

World War II drastically changed the environment in which scientific researchers worked. It limited freedom to conduct scientific research, isolated international colleagues and imposed scarcities of equipment and energy. Yet paradoxically this was a time when scientists broke new ground in unexpected ways, their need to improvise resulting in remarkable and innovative findings. This work explores just how scientists coped with the circumstances of the war. The first part concerns scientists working in warring countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and the United States, where scientists were often brought into weaponry programmes and strategic industries in order to contribute to the war effort. The second part focuses on scientists in occupied territories, in particular the Netherlands and France, where scientists had to find a way of dealing with the occupying powers. The work highlights the unexpected research directions taken by wartime scientists, their ability to adapt and the often remarkable continuity in scientific research. It shows that scientific work during World War II concerned much more than nuclear bomb programmes and the development of radar and missile techniques. This is an important contribution to contemporary history and to the history of science, as well as a testament to human ingenuity and determination.

Spis treści

Introduction: Ordinary Scientists in Extraordinary Circumstances  Chapter 1. The Mobilisation of Science and Science-Based Technology during the Second World War: A Comparative History  Chapter 2. To Work or Not to Work in War Research?: The Case of the Italian Physicist G.P.S. Occhialini during WWII  Chapter 3. Scientific Research in the Second World War: The Case for Bacinol, Dutch Penicillin  Chapter 4.  Preventing Theft: The Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in Wartime  Chapter 5. Electron Microscopy in Second World War Delft  Chapter 6. "Splendid Isolation"?: Aviation Medicine in World War II  Chapter 7. National Socialism, Human Genetics and Eugenics in the Netherlands 1940-1945  Chapter 8. The Birth of a Modern Instrument and Its Development during World War II: Electron Microscopy in Germany from the 1930s to 1945  Chapter 9. Aerodynamic Research at the Nationaal Luchtvaartlaboratorium (NLL) in Amsterdam under German Occupation during World War II  Chapter 10. Masa Takeuchi and His Involvement in the Japanese Nuclear Weapons Research Programme  Chapter 11. The Cyclotron and the War: Construction of the 60-inch Cyclotron in Japan  Chapter 12. Forging a New Discipline: Reflections on the Wartime Infrastructure for Research and Development in Feedback Control in the US, UK, Germany and USSR  Chapter 13. British cryptanalysis: the breaking of 'Fish' traffic 

O autorze

Ad Maas, Hans Hooijmaijers