Hungarian-American physicist and inventor Leo Szilard played a prominent role in conducting the first sustained nuclear chain reaction, which was a pivotal breakthrough in the field of nuclear physics. Later, this concept of sustained nuclear chain reaction played a significant role in the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.
Born on February 11, 1898, Szilard majored in physics and engineering at the Technical University of Budapest. He received his PhD from the University of Berlin, and later joined its Institute of Theoretical Physics. When Nazis took over in 1933, Szilard moved to Vienna.
Later, he shifted to London, and joined the physics faculty at the medical college of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Here, he joined British physicist TA Chalmers to develop the first method of separating isotopes. In 1939, Szilard and Eugene Wigner identified the potential for creation of a nuclear chain reaction.
He then persuaded Albert Einstein to inform the US Government, and wrote to President Franklin D Roosevelt about the potential of nuclear weapons and urged the US to begin nuclear energy research. From 1942, until the war ended, Szilard, with fellow physicist Enrico Fermi, conducted the first controlled chain reaction (nuclear reactor) at the University of Chicago.
This experiment, termed ‘Chicago Pile-2’, demonstrated the feasibility of nuclear fission as a potential energy source that helped in creating powerful nuclear weapons. Szilard also played a key role in the ‘Manhattan Project’, a top-secret US government programme during World War II to create the atomic bomb, which proved devastating, yet decisive in ending the war.