Rotblat, Joseph (1908-2005), a Polish-born British physicist, became known for his strong opposition to nuclear weapons. Rotblat was a founder of the British Association of Atomic Scientists, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and the United Kingdom Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He dedicated himself to informing his fellow scientists and the general public about the dangers of nuclear war. Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for peace for their efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.
Rotblat was born on Nov. 4, 1908, in Warsaw, Poland. He earned a Master of Arts degree in physics at the Free University of Poland in 1932. In 1938, he received a doctorate in physics from the University of Warsaw. From 1937 to 1939, he was assistant director of the Atomic Physics Institute of the Free University of Poland. In 1939, he traveled to the United Kingdom, where he accepted a research fellowship at the University of Liverpool. Rotblat left Poland just before Nazi Germany invaded the country. He became a citizen of the United Kingdom in 1946. At Liverpool, he worked with Sir James Chadwick on the fission (splitting) of uranium-235 atoms (see Chadwick, Sir James ).
Rotblat was already an acknowledged expert in atomic radiation physics, and in January 1944, he went with Chadwick to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to join the British group of scientists involved in the Manhattan Project (see Manhattan Project ). The aim of the project was to develop an atomic bomb for the Allies before Nazi Germany could make its own atomic weapon. But late in 1944, it became clear that Germany could not make its own bomb. The research work was then used instead in a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. In December 1944, risking a charge of military desertion, Rotblat resigned from the Manhattan team and returned to England. He became the only Manhattan Project scientist to quit the project based on his moral beliefs, and was banned from the United States until 1951.
Rotblat continued to work at the University of Liverpool, serving as director of research in nuclear physics from 1945 to 1949. He became a fellow of the Institute of Physics in 1948. Rotblat became increasingly interested in the medical and biological aspects of his subject, and in 1950, he became professor of physics and chief physicist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. In 1976, he retired from his professorship.
Despite his busy academic career, Rotblat publicized his worries about nuclear war. In 1946, he founded the British Association of Atomic Scientists to bring these worries to the attention of his colleagues. In 1955, with fears mounting over the testing of nuclear devices, Rotblat became one of the 11 people who signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, a document circulated by the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell and the German-born American physicist Albert Einstein, inviting scientists of the world to meet to find ways of preventing nuclear war.
Rotblat served as the first secretary-general of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1957 to 1973. The Pugwash Conferences were named after the fishing village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, where the first meeting was held in 1957. It was attended by scientists from nearly a dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to discuss the threat of nuclear war. The Pugwash meetings became a forum for world peace, advocating the abolition of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction. Rotblat remained associated with the organization as chairman of the Pugwash Council. He served as president of the Pugwash Conferences from 1988 to 1997. In 1958, Rotblat helped set up the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Rotblat was awarded the 1992 Albert Einstein Peace Prize, a highly regarded honor given by the Albert Einstein Peace Prize Foundation. In 1995, Rotblat was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, one of the world’s leading scientific organizations. He was knighted in 1998 and became known as Sir Joseph Rotblat. He died on Aug. 31, 2005.
