The Industrial Applications of 

 Atomic Energy^ 



By M. L. Oliphant 



Professor of Physics, University of Birmingham, England ' 



Any attempt to forecast the ways in which atomic energy will 

 be applied for the good of mankind is as unreal as to prophesy the 

 future of a 5-year-old child. It is certain that the new source of 

 power will be applied in ways that cannot now be envisaged. It is 

 possible that a scientist who has spent his life in the study of nuclear 

 physics and the unexpected and monstrous child to which it gave 

 birth after 50 years as a purely academic discipline, is as much entitled 

 as anyone to guess how it will develop in the years ahead, but, as a 

 parent of a "problem" child, he is as unlikely to guess correctly. 

 Fortunately for me the blanket of secrecy that covers some aspects 

 of development in this field has been pulled aside, by official declassi- 

 fication of information, by the reports and news releases of the United 

 States Atomic Energy Commission, and by the statements of American 

 senators, sufficiently for a picture of the general lines of thinking and 

 experimenting to be available. 



ARTIFICIALLY RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES 



In the early days of public knowledge of atomic energy much was 

 said and written about the great value of the radioactive byproducts 

 in medicine, agriculture, chemistry, and other branches of scientific 

 investigation. The advances in our knowledge of natural processes 

 which can be gained in this way are very real, and scientists all over 

 the world are using the materials made available through the Ameri- 

 can and British atomic-energy projects. However, the total amount 

 of radioactive material required to satisfy all needs is so trivial in 

 relation to what can be produced that it can provide no economic 

 justification for the development of atomic energy. All the radio- 



^ Trueman Wood Lecture, delivered at the meeting of the Royal Society of Arts, Wed- 

 nesday, March 8, 1950. Reprinted by permission from the Journal of the Royal Society of 

 Arts, vol. 98, No. 4819, April 21, 1950. 



2 Now at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. 



223 



