The University of Birmingham,nuclear power,and start of UK reactor programme

Abstract

As long ago as 1919 (the year Sir Alan Cottrell was born) Sir Oliver Lodge, the first principal of The University of Birmingham presented a remarkable prescient account of the potential of nuclear power. However, he could not have predicted that a mere 20 years later, in that university, Peierls and Frisch would begin to lay the foundations with their calculation that the critical mass of ²³⁵U was only of the order of 1 kg. It is generally the case that work in the field of pure physics leads to the initiating discovery; metallurgy follows with the development of the resultant technology. In this paper, it is illustrated how the shortage of suitable materials (and facilities) forced the UK to follow a route which would lead to the development of gas cooled reactors.

MST/1314