Frontiers of Science

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I spent some of last weekend searching through piles of second hand books at the Dominion Road War Memorial Hall. Among the New Ideas and the seemingly infinite National Geographics, I found a couple of issues of Frontiers of Science from 1971.

I was initially attracted to the bright orange and green cover. Expecting some boring text book filled with formula I was very surprised to find the history of particle physics told in pictures! The inset cell shows the day of the first self-sustaining Nuclear chain reaction. Enrico Fermi and his team of researchers observe their 25 foot long graphite pile inside which the reaction will take place.

I love this approach to teaching science, using art as a medium for information. Each page spread gives a few paragraphs of text outlining the subject matter, followed by a cartoon-like narrative. Fortunately for Fermi there was no POW, the graphite blocks did their job and absorbed the stray electrons, but it was only two years before the first detonation of a real atomic bomb.

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