Genius and fear

Mad on Radium: New Zealand in the Atomic Age. By Rebecca Priestley. Published by the Auckland University Press. Reviewed by Bruce Astridge. This book derives from the author’s PhD from the University of Canterbury on the history of science. Considerable research has gone into expanding the thesis to create a thorough and interesting history of the subject, much of which is not common knowledge.

At the close of the 19th century and in the early 20th, New Zealand science and medicine were well up with the world, in the sometimes quaint uses of exotic mineral waters, X-rays and even radium.

The hazards were not immediately recognised but the evolution of the whole subject, and indeed the foundation of nuclear physics, was due largely to the genius of one New Zealander, Ernest (later Sir Ernest) Rutherford.

Rutherford worked mainly in the United Kingdom and Canada; but he was a man of huge presence and intellect and he attracted cap- able New Zealanders to work in many aspects of nuclear science.

From the 1950s New Zealand struggled to keep up in this area, although both main political parties concluded that the nation would at some point need nuclear power.

The on-again, off-again effort to cater for the education of appropriate scientists and engineers is well covered, as is the abrogation of the whole subject by the ironic discovery of more plentiful fossil fuels and the brave decision to go for a Cook Strait transmission cable, along with the growing public fear of anything nuclear.

The whole subject is fascinating and the author has done it justice.