At the end of World War II, scientist Sam Goudmsit led a secret search for a German atomic bomb. His life sounds like an exciting boy's book. Journalist Martijn van Calmthout wrote an excellent biography of the physicist.
Adolf Hitler with an atomic bomb was a terrifying image to the Allies during World War II. And the idea wasn't that crazy. The Germans had discovered nuclear fission and the physicists from that country were among the best in the world.
Towards the end of the war, the Americans therefore set up a secret mission to find out whether Hitler had an atomic bomb. Samuel Goudsmit (1902-1978) had already left the Netherlands for the United States and was asked there to lead the search for Hitler's atomic bomb.
Destruction
It was not so strange that the Americans asked Goudsmit. He was a respected scientist through his discovery of the electron spin in 1925. He spoke several languages and knew many German nuclear scientists well, including Werner Heisenberg. The Americans suspected that he would lead the German nuclear program.
So more than enough material for a biography, science journalist Martijn van Calmthout must have thought. Rightly so, because he knows how to turn Goudsmit's life into a fascinating biography. The secret mission in 1944 and 1945 plays a major role in the book. We mainly follow the physicist through France and Germany, where he interrogates scientists close to the front in the wake of the Allied troops.
Important supporting role
In the end, it turned out that the Nazis had not gone far with their nuclear program. The research was still on a laboratory scale, Goudsmit discovered. The Nazis had made a number of mistakes, which meant that an atomic bomb was still a long way off. Goudsmit draws that conclusion fairly quickly, and Van Calmthout also lets the reader know this early in the book. As a result, the tension decreases. Yet this biography never bores. Van Calmthout accurately describes how Goudsmit travels and who he interrogates. He also shows how Goudsmit was affected by the destruction in Europe.
Not only Goudsmit's secret mission is interesting. The pre-war years are also worthwhile. These are the heyday of physics, in which one discovery after another is made by geniuses such as Albert Einstein, Pieter Zeeman, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Van Calmthout excels in his accessible explanation of the changing insights in physics.
Van Calmthout states in this biography that Goudsmit did not play a 'leading role' in science, nor did he play an 'important supporting role' during the Second World War. That is an accurate description of the biographer. The only disturbing thing about this book is the many repetitions. For example, Van Calmthout explains several times why Goudsmit was particularly suitable to lead the search for the German atomic bomb. But that does not alter the fact that this is an excellent biography of Goudsmit, which not only provides a good insight into the life of the physicist, but also into the time in which he lived.