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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <head>     <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" > <META name="description" content="Leo Szilard (1898-1964). Physicist, biophysicist, and 'scientist of conscience.' Biographical information, documents, photos, audio, links."> <META name="keywords" content="Leo Szilard, Einstein, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, nuclear weapons, atomic bomb"> <meta name="author" content="Gene Dannen" > <title>Leo Szilard Online</title> <script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-58902865-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000ff" alink="#00ff00" vlink="#ff0000"> <center> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" > <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ff0000"> <table width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" border="0" > <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ffffcc"> <h1 align=center>Leo Szilard Online</h1> </td></tr></table></td></tr></table></center> <br clear=all> <img src="images/szilard1.gif" alt="Leo Szilard, near Oxford, spring/summer 1936" border="1" width="322" height="220" style="float:left; margin-right:15px; margin-bottom:5px"> <font size="-1"><b>Leo Szilard, near Oxford, spring/summer 1936. </b>Photo copyright U.C. Regents; used by permission. Contact <a href="http://libraries.ucsd.edu/collections/sca/index.html">Special Collections and Archives, U.C. San Diego</a>, for information on obtaining Szilard images.</font> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">Welcome to the world of physicist, molecular biologist, and “scientist of conscience” Leo Szilard (1898-1964).</font></p> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">Szilard conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and spent the rest of his life trying to protect the world from nuclear weapons.</font></p> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">Szilard’s other inventions included the linear accelerator, cyclotron, and electron microscope.</font></p> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">In his 1929 paper on Maxwell’s Demon, Szilard identified the unit or “bit” of information. The rise of the Information Age shows the importance of his long-unappreciated idea.</font></p> <p><font size="+1" color="000000">Szilard’s name can be pronounced in different ways. In Hungary, it is pronounced SEE-lahrd. English speakers usually pronounce it as ZIL-ahrd or zuh-LAHRD. His name is pronounced by several people who knew him in the videos below. </font></p> <br clear=all> <center> <table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" > <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ff0000"> <table width="100%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" border="0" > <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ffffcc"> <center><font size="+1" color="#1010A0">January 26, 2015. I’m pleased to announce the publication of an article that I think may be remembered as long as the story of the nuclear age is told... <a href="http://www.dannen.com/lostlove/">A Physicist’s Lost Love: Leo Szilard and Gerda Philipsborn</a></font></center> </td></tr></table></td></tr></table></center> <br clear=all> <table align=right width="310" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffcc" border=0> <tr valign=top> <td> <p> <a href="images/fridge2.gif"> <img border=1 src="images/fridge2.gif" alt="Einstein-Szilard patent" width="102" height="157" style="float:left; margin-left:5px; margin-right:10px; margin-top:1px; margin-bottom:5px"></a> <font color="#000000"><b>ALSO STILL COOL:</b></font><br> <font color="#000000"><b><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-einstein-szilard-refrigerators/">“The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerators”</a> by <a href="home.html">Gene Dannen</a> in the January 1997 issue of <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/">Scientific American.</a> Translations have been published in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and perhaps other languages. For more information, see this <a href="fridge1.html">page of further references and notes to the article.</a> </b></font></p> </td></tr></table> <h2>Biographical</h2> <font size="+1"> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="chronbio.html"> Leo Szilard - A Biographical Chronology.</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="budatalk.html"> Leo Szilard the Inventor</a> -- full text of a talk delivered at the Budapest Centenary.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="33fasor.html"> Photographs of Szilard’s boyhood house in Budapest.</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="audio.html"> Remembering Leo Szilard - In RealAudio.</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <A HREF="http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html"> Leo Szilard, Interview: “President Truman Did Not Understand.”</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="einstein.html"> Albert Einstein - F.B.I. interview.</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="roadtowar.html">“Are We On The Road To War?”</a> - The speech that launched the Council for a Livable World.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <A HREF="http://www.peak.org/~danneng/lawrence.html"> Leo Szilard and Ernest O. Lawrence - 1935 photo.</a><br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="aaron.html">Aaron Novick 1919-2000</a> Aaron Novick, Leo Szilard’s long-time collaborator in molecular biology, died December 21, 2000 at the age of 81.<br> </font> <img src="../images/szilard-petition-width300.jpg" alt="Leo Szilard petition, July 17, 1945" width="300" height="457" style="float:right; margin-left:15px; margin-right:10px; margin-top:5px; margin-bottom:5px"> <h2>Atomic Bomb</h2> <font size="+1"> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="decision/index.html"> Atomic Bomb: Decision</a> - A collection of documents on the decision to use the first atomic bombs, and Szilard’s attempts to prevent this — including his July 17, 1945 petition to President Truman. This is the most popular page on the Dannen.com website. It has received millions of visitors.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="ae-fdr.html"> Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt, August 2, 1939</a> - Images of the letter, and how it came to be written.<br> </font> <h2>Video</h2> <font size="+1"> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=zQbHn2zL3e4"> Jacob Bronowski invokes his friend Szilard in the most famous scene in “The Ascent of Man”</a> - From “My Father, The Bomb and Me” by Bronowski’s daughter Lisa Jardine. (7 minutes) <br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=UmGVnFGVu50"> The Many Worlds of Leo Szilard</a> - Speakers Richard Garwin, Matthew Meselson, and William Lanouette discuss Szilard at the APS Forum on the History of Physics at the April 2014 meeting of the American Physical Society. (1 hour, 41 minutes)<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=SVIIFBHhl6g"> Leo Szilard: The Man Behind the Bomb</a> - William Lanouette talks about Szilard at the UC San Diego library. (50 minutes)<br> </font> <h2>New and Notable Publications</h2> <font size="+1"> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> On Alex Wellerstein’s <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com">Nuclear Secrecy Blog</a> in 2015: || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/03/06/to-demonstrate-or-not-to-demonstrate/">To demonstrate or not to demonstrate?</a> || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/08/03/were-there-alternatives-to-the-atomic-bombings/">Were there alternatives to the atomic bombings?</a> || <br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> On Alex Wellerstein’s <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com">Nuclear Secrecy Blog</a> in 2014: || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/02/14/leo-szilard-war-criminal/">Leo Szilard, war criminal?</a> || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/03/07/death-dust-1941">Death dust, 1941</a> || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/05/16/szilards-chain-reaction/">Szilard's chain reaction, visionary or crank?</a> || <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-misconception/">The Kyoto misconception</a> ||<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> William Lanouette’s 1992 Szilard biography <a href="http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239107393580">Genius in the Shadows</a> was re-issued in 2013 by Skyhorse Publishing.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> An enormous <a href="http://www.netlib.org/bibnet/authors/s/szilard-leo.ps.gz"> bibliography of works by and about Leo Szilard</a> has been compiled by Nelson H.F. Beebe.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> P.D. Smith’s book <a href="http://www.peterdsmith.com/doomsday-men-the-real-dr-strangelove-and-the-dream-of-the-superweapon/">Doomsday Men: The Real Dr Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon</a> was published by Penguin in 2007.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://global.oup.com/academic/product/martians-of-science-9780195365566">The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century</a> by Istvan Hargittai was published by Oxford University Press in 2006.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://franktibor.hu/english/curriculum-vitae/">Tibor Frank</a>’s article <a href="http://www.franktibor.hu/img/kozl/05_frank_236-web.pdf">Ever Ready To Go: The Multiple Exiles of Leo Szilard</a> (PDF), one of the best studies of Szilard, was published in Physics in Perspective in 2005.<br> <img src="images/red_arr.gif" width=13 height=13 alt="*"> <a href="http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/53/10/10.1063/1.1325189"> Szilard as Inventor: Accelerators and More</a> by Valentine Telegdi, in the October 2000 issue of Physics Today. See the <a href="http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/54/3/10.1063/1.1366083?ver=pdfcov"> response by Gene Dannen</a> in the March 2001 issue.<br> </font> <h2>Leo Szilard Centennial 1998</h2> <img src="../images/world-set-free-width300.jpg" alt="H.G. Wells: The World Set Free, 1914 (1st American edition)" width="300" height="401" style="float:right; margin-left:15px; margin-right:10px; margin-top:5px; margin-bottom:5px"> <font size="+1" color="#000000">The 100th anniversary of Szilard’s birth was celebrated in 1998 in both Hungary and the U.S.A.. In February, a <a href="100years.html">Centenary Conference</a> was held in Budapest. One of the sessions convened in the Hungarian Parliament. This page of <a href="98buda-2.html">photographs of the Budapest events by Gene Dannen and William Lanouette</a> includes information about the published conference volume. In addition, Hungary issued a Szilard <a href="stamp.html">postage stamp</a> and <a href="telcard.html">telephone card.</a> In April, a <a href="aps-98.html">Szilard centennial session</a> was held at a meeting of the American Physical Society. </font> <h2>External Links</h2> <font size="+1" color="#000000">Leo Szilard’s unpublished papers and correspondence are held by <a href="http://libraries.ucsd.edu/collections/sca/index.html">Special Collections and Archives, University of California, San Diego.</a> The full <a href="http://roger.ucsd.edu/record=b2251662~S9"> Register of the Leo Szilard Papers</a> is online. The entire collection is now being scanned and digitized. Beginning May 1, 2015, scans are being added to the <a href="http://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb0752385q">online digital collection.</a></font> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">The <a href="http://aps.org/programs/honors/awards/szilard.cfm">Leo Szilard Lectureship Award</a>, given yearly by the <a href="http://aps.org/">American Physical Society</a>, honors “outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society.” It is sponsored by the A.P.S. <a href="http://www.aps.org/units/fps/">Forum on Physics and Society.</a></font></p> <p><font size="+1" color="#000000">Photos of Szilard also may be found on these pages:<br> <a href="http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/ae44.htm">This</a> page of <a href="http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/">Einstein: Image and Impact</a> at the AIP Center for History of Physics (Szilard with Einstein)<br> The <A HREF="http://photos.aip.org/">Emilio Segre Visual Archives</A> at the AIP Center for History of Physics has 26 pictures online.</FONT></P> <br clear=all> <center><table width="100%" cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 border=0> <tr> <td width="100%" colspan=4 bgcolor="#ffffcc"> <b>Other sites with links to this page, or its subpages, include:</b> </td></tr> <tr> <td width=4>  <br> </td> <td align=left valign=top width="45%"> <spacer type=vertical size=5>  <a href="http://www.livableworld.org/"> Council for a Livable World</a><br> <a href="http://thebulletin.org/"> Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists</a><br> <a href="http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/"> The Nuclear Weapon Archive</a><br> <br> </td> <td width="10%">  <br> </td> <td align=left valign=top width="45%"> <spacer type=vertical size=5>  <a href="http://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history"> American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics</a><br> <a href="http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/"> Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog</a><br> <a href="http://physlink.com/"> PhysLINK</a><br> <br> </td> </tr> </table></center> <br> <center> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%"> <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ff0000"> <table cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" border="0" width="100%"> <tr valign="top"> <td bgcolor="#ffffcc"> <center>Copyright © 1995-2015 Gene Dannen<br> Created: March 30, 1995 Last modified: August 9, 2015<br> URL: http://www.dannen.com/szilard.html<br> <a href="home.html"><cite>Gene Dannen / gene@dannen.com</cite></a></center> </td></tr></table></td></tr></table></center> </body></html>