1957-06-01 — Page 7

HIS FATHER

門

BIR WILLIAM PENNEY .

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1957.

Father H-BOMB

and

Son

Sir Willis m Penney's a thor (above) is a 77- year-old ono - time sergeant-major Ordnanco, now liv ing in Sheerness.,

Seld father of sun : "Won all his scholarships. Rad

to, you know.

couldn't afford 14"

- bý

VISCOUNT CHERWELL

Lord Cherwel is a member of the Alonta Encrou Authority and was Churchill's war-linię scientific adviser.

H-BANG

PENNEY POPPYCOCK

The road from Obscurity..

If he buys an airline ticket

these days, it's an international event

BEHIND the terse two- ised the Forces, slashed the line announcement that Budget and invested millions Britain's H-bomb has been in new atomic works. successfully exploded lics an unprecedented story of spec- tacular rise to power.

It is the story of how one man, through the tremen- dous influence which scien- tific akill can now confer, hus, without conscious effort, made himself into an international figure and 21 pivot of political polley.

ago

That man is 47-year-old Sir William Penney, the atomic expert who was an unknown suburban mathe matician seven years but can now create an inter- national incident merely by booking an airline ticket to Australia as he did last month.

If he had failed the poll- tical chaos would have been so great that the Govern- ment could scarcely have survived...

Authority

►

WHAT Fort of man, is thla Penney who without any or pronat politiesenting inagnetism can command such Buthority and trust? And how did he get where he is?

To look

of

Penney is in no sense 。 BILL PENNEY, as he likes to

and does not in political animal,. D be known, was born

the son Gibraltar,

a consciously try to interfere in serving soldier whoze fore- policy. hack no precisions to bears abstruse learning.

He won his way to university on scholarships as any grammar school boy may do.

·

Few argue

ET so few of the defence

Y chiefs or politicians are come in petent to argue with him on be technical

of atomic that his writ largely

'Jo was bright enough Juggling wlih figures to appointed assis.ant profesor. weapons of mathematics at the rules.

College in Imperial

London when he was only 27,

10 is ironic

of

matters

and it must be remembered that cur Christmas Island tests wil add only a small fraction to the fell-out from tests already made,

TT is excellent news that sea level than In the lowlands,

we have detonated an H-bomb at. Christmas Island, for the design of such weapon is so com- plicated and difficult that this success denotes an out- standing triumph for Sir William Penney and his team.

Nobody stems to be able, to auggest any way of keeping the peace save the power to retaliato in such a devastating fashion | that it is worth nobody's while to

commence hostilllier,

Hitherto we have had to rely on the goodwill of America and we hovo ́meen only recently what may happen if her pro- tection is removed.

*

It England and perhaps

Europe is to maintain real independence, and indeed self- Important spect, it is really that we should not be, at the mercy of the Communist Powers without being able to hit back should wo be attacked,

/ NO HARM

To avoid controversy he has rarely made any pubile pro- the Professor nouncements, Last year in Aus- secret Hyman Levy, his chief there, tralla he revealed the

which appreciated his doubla

have assalled who quickly

It is most satisfactory that gifts, was Communist with him.

the Government has not allowed whom Penney soon had to sever

relations al and to peak close

"The grim and uncompromis itself to be deflected by the ex- because is the quintessince security requirements,

ing behaviour of the Iron Cur-traordinary agitation which has to Penney

tain countries drove the United been raised here against carry at Die quiet Englishman-the clipartly. Overweight, Boftly

Penney had no particular in- Kingdom Government to its de-ing out any tests at all. spoken, bespectacled suburban terest in weapons as a boy ciston to make atomic weapons," 'The position of the EUR- ype whose chief enjoyment is though he enjoyed spearing he said. "Since I was asked to scientious pacifist, though it has sitting at home in his slippers eclor as a young man. He lead this work I have repeated-no biological survival value, is with his family:

la drified into that specialised field ly asked myself if I was right logical, though scarcely

telligible. through the fluke circumstance to do what I have done. that his name was on the Na-

In

Never before in history has the British Government His extraordinary position. tional Register of Scientists "In all humility con Eoy

tho free placed such reliance on one unparalle

that I have never wavered in Americans available for war work. the world-for

To man's word. On Penney's

the beliee that I was right, have no comparable character-

Largely by chance he was claim that I have never been assurance that his entirely is the result of a combination untried H-bomb would work of chance events and peculiar asked to make a mathematical worried about my action would, study of underwater blast however, be very far from the the Government revolution- mental agility,

effects. It might just as easily truth.” have been a mathematical study on rationing.

Nuclear Crops and

DRITISH and American

Atomic Flees action which had now qui

Bscientists have discover straw

ed that the atom can

substantially crease

yields of crops.

A type of barley with stiffer and a higher-yielding strain of pens will soon be in-

for commercial marketed the sale.

A new variety of bean-which ripens earlier, is more plentiful and adaptable 10 mechanical harvesting-has been grown,

POCKET CARTOON by OSBERT LANCASTER

Kon

BE NOT

TOLD

"Write me down as an escapist, but personally I can think of nothing 1 so much don't mind not being told about!"

In the development of such the scientists make plants. use of X-rays, neutrunS and ultra-violet rays.

Big strides have already been made towards producing cereal crops which are less likely to be damaged by winds and heavy

rain.

аге

In America experiments going on into the possibilities of increasing the stance of burtey, outs and wheat to dis- cases such na stem-rusi, mildew and blight.

One disease-fusarium will which attacks a wide variety of plants, bas been successfully controlled by treating the plants with rays.

Fleas are being subjected radiation in tests to see

purt

To try to mare people by talea about the genetle effects of the fall-out from the tests is there Lore scarcely honest,

Then there is the story about the mysterious-sounding Stron-

um DD.

In nuclear explosions a certain this substance is amount of formed, which is dispersed over the upper atmosphere through- out the world and slowly sinks to the ground.

In due course, any fraction may eater Into the vegetation and ultimately an infinitesimal Imount may be deposited in our bones.

It is quito two that radio- deposited in active substances the bones--may cause tumour. When watch dials were first painted with Juminous paint, which is radioactive, workers in the industry often developed cancerous symptoms because they were so apt to put the paint brushes into their mouths. Biringent medical precautions were thereupon it down by the Government and a definite limit for the amount that was per- missible in the bones was laid down by the medical authorities and has been enforced ever since.

In the course of the last few years many investigations have mado concernlug the been amount of Strontium 90 reguli- ing from previous tests which has been deposited in human What is objectionable is the bones.

to prevent out It turns out to be less than endeavour

the country developing the ultimate one-thousandth part of

· of radium deterrent by stopping our tests equivalent amount on the false plea that they permitted by law for people in would endanger the health of occupations using

the world.

This story is really devoid of In spite of his fabulous any foundation. The questions *success,

which has brought have been studied conscien- His work on the effects of him fame, power, a knight-Hously by the very highest

20,000 underwater explosions on the hood

boil here and in year,nuhzorities, A Mulberry Harbour for use of Penney has never been entirely America, with access to all the set off a chain re happy working on weapons. data, and they have come to the unanimous conclusion that our minate in this super-explosion He bag hated the barbed Wire tests will do no harm to any

face and the security restric-body. at Christmas Island.

tions that inevitably go with] The principal argument of the such a job. But he has per-pacifist is that the radiation sistently put the needs of na- from the fall-out of the bomb adverse genelle tional derence before his per- might cause

the other words, sonal ambition which was and effects-in probably still is a quict pro-birth of malformed or defective fessorship in mathematics at a babies, major university,

In the team

was asked to join the newly formed...Anglo-US, utom bomb team in 1944 in him the antural choice to lead Amerien. This eventually made the all-British team which had to be set up when the Americans

severed atomic relations two

years later.

From then on, operating mnly with a slide-rule, Penney blossomed into a scientist with a unique fair for converting the mathematical symbols of atomic physics into highly c plosive ironmongery.

Monte Bello, Emu Field, and Moralinga. in Ausralla, and now Christmas Island in how the Pacific have. all

rever-

to

thunder he has created.

the insects carry plague and berated with the cut-price discuse to animals and man.

The fitas ore pul containing cerium--a by-product

on water

The peculiarities of the post- that

of atomic power stations. They war world have made

are then turned loose on animals

thunder and the man who can

and tracked by a type of geiger-best make It lato dominarit counter.

London Express Service,

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

WHY ARE

YOU TWO LOOKING SO PUZZLED

10-20

"HMM--NARPA, JUST IMAGINE YOU WERE WHISKE INTO THE FUTURE--

SAY TO 62,000 A.2,

SAY YOU SPENT

THREE MONTHS THERE, AND THEN WERE WHISKED BACK, ARRIVING ONE PAY BEFORE YOU A STARTED!

factors in power polities.

WOULD YOU BAY IT HAPPENED

! GIVE UP

AT ALL?

WHAT'S THE

ANSWERT,

His future

WHAT is Penney's future after this culminating Christ- mas Island triumph?

He has toki me that most men are bereft of their best ideas after they reach 40, and he does not exclude himself; from this opinion,

So my tortcast is that the man in whòm the Government placed such trust will soon be leaving active weapons develop- ment to younger men he has collected round him and in whom he has the same abiding confidence.

substances.

radioactive

UNJUSTIFIED

Sn

the

It would seem,, therefore, that this alleged danger is also to all and Ригрався поп- stents existent,

Naturally, the aftermath of on H-bomb war might be disastrous to us all. But that is what we are treking to prevent.

Of course, if the level of radioactive material stratosphere were a thousand of times higher even a hundred than it is, it would give rise to What they seem to forget is anxiety.

But to try to prevent our that everybody, anyhow, is

sort of developing le ultimate deter- to the same exposed

from the radium in rent by clamouring against our radiation the ground and in the houses itats which will only add and from the cosmic rays which traction to what is there already stream down upon us from the is utterly unjustified. upper air

As the air absorbs commic rays on the way down, we naturally get more of thêm the higher we live above sea level.

Now the tadiation ling upon us as a result of all the bomb texts made, up to date in of the Te than one perocné ordinary radiation we receive from these sources all the time anyhow.

The little bit extra we gei from the fall-out of. all the previous bomb thats is about equal to the extra we would gel if we lived 200ft, higher than we do.

No one could honestly suggest

Chapman that this would be a danger; on

Pincher

By Leo Falk and Phil Davis

I GIVE UP, TOO. BUT, NARDA

THE YOU EVER GEE Á LITTLE"

FOS, WATCH YOUR STEPY

the contrary. most people con- Live sider It is healthier to many hundreds of feet above

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