The Life and Work of Prof Joseph Rotblat: Selected Articles and Resources

You have probably seen the film Oppenheimer which tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and how he helped develop the first nuclear weapons during WW2. But maybe you haven’t heard of  Joseph Rotblat, a Polish-born scientist who emigrated to Britain in 1938. Rotblat took part in the Manhattan Project in 1944, but resigned when it became apparent that the risk of Nazi Germany acquiring atomic weapons had receded. He was the only wartime scientist to walk away from the project for moral reasons. Rotblat committed the rest of his life to peace advocacy and the ethical application of science, including helping to create Pugwash in 1957.

i) Articles, talks, interviews, and reports by Prof Rotblat

• Personal papers at the Churchill College Cambridge Archive

https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/agents/people/5572

• ‘Foreword’, Addressing the Nuclear Weapons Threat: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto Fifty Years On, International Pugwash, December 2005

https://pugwash.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/200512_occasionalpaper_manifesto50years.pdf

• ‘Remember Your Humanity’, Address to the 7th NPT Review Conference, Atomic Mirror, May 2005

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/140/140906/140906rotblat_en.pdf

• ‘Science and Nuclear Weapons- Where do we go from here?,’ Blackaby Papers / Abolition 2000, December 2004

https://www.nuclearinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Abolition_2000_Blackaby_Papers_Joseph_Rotblat_Science_and_nuclear_weapons_December_2004.pdf

• ‘How I learned to hate the bomb’, The Guardian, 21 March 2003

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/mar/21/highereducation.uk1

• ”We are on a slippery slope, heading for disaster’, The Guardian, 8 January 2003

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/08/nuclear.uk

• ‘A War-Free World: Is it Desirable? Is it Feasible?’, Imperial War Museum, 11 November 2002

https://pugwash.org/2002/11/11/rotblat-a-war-free-world-is-it-desirable-is-it-feasible/#:~:text=Excerpt%3A,demonstrated%20in%20Hiroshima%20and%20Nagasaki.

• ‘Remember Your Humanity’, Nobel Prize Lecture, 1995

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1995/rotblat/lecture/

• ‘Background data relating to the management of nuclear fuel cycle materials and plants’ in Internationalization to Prevent the Spread of Nuclear Weapons, Taylor & Francis, 1980

https://www.sipri.org/publications/1980/internationalization-prevent-spread-nuclear-weapons

ii) Articles, features and videos about Prof Rotblat

• ‘Joseph Rotblat, the Scientist Who Walked Away from Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb’, Tom Loftus, Outrider, 7 March 2024

https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/joseph-rotblat-scientist-who-walked-away-oppenheimer-and-atomic-bomb

• ‘There’s no flashy Oppenheimer cameo, but this scientist helped start the disarmament movement in Canada’, Nick Logan, CBC News, 5 August 2023

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/oppenheimer-rotblat-pugwash-conferences-1.6927180

• ‘People of Science with Brian Cox – Professor Martin Rees on Joseph Rotblat’, Royal Society, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSKT-d6KfWc

•  ‘Scientists in the Quest for Peace: Joseph Rotblat, the Manhattan Project, and the Pugwash Conferences’, Alison Cullingford, Bradford University

https://100objectsbradford.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/86-scientists-in-the-quest-for-peace-joseph-rotblat-the-manhattan-project-and-the-pugwash-conferences/

•  ‘Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience: The Life and Work of Joseph Rotblat’, Andrew Brown, Oxford University Press, February 2012

https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/keeper-nuclear-conscience-life-and-work-joseph-rotblat

• ‘Joseph Rotblat’s conscientious life in science and politics’, Andrew Robinson, The Lancet, 28 January 2012

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60131-7/fulltext

• ‘Great Lives’, BBC Radio 4, January 2012

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0194mxs

• ‘The Strangest Dream’ Eric Bednarski, ARTE Documentary, 2008

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/114626-000-A/the-strangest-dream/

• ‘Biographical Memoir’ Robert Hinde and John Finney, Royal Society, 2007

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.2007.0023

• ‘The nuclear scientist who tried to stop Hiroshima’, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

https://cnduk.org/the-nuclear-scientist-who-tried-to-stop-hiroshima/

• ‘The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat’, Lawrence S. Wittner, History News Network

https://www.hnn.us/article/the-political-rehabilitation-of-joseph-rotblat

• ‘Joseph Rotblat Building’, Queen Mary, University of London

Joseph Rotblat was a Professor of Physics at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College (1950-1976).

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/about/queen-mary-heritage/barts-and-the-london/st-bartholomews-medical-college/st-bartholomews-medical-college-tour-/charterhouse-square-campus/joseph-rotblat-building/

• ‘Joseph Rotblat Prize’, University College London

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-physics-biomedical-engineering/joseph-rotblat-prize

• Wikipedia entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rotblat

• ‘Manhattan Project: People’, US Department of Energy

https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/People/Scientists/joseph-rotblat.html

• Collected Rotblat materials, International Pugwash

https://pugwash.org/tag/rotblat/

• Atomic Heritage Foundation / Voices of the Manhattan Project

Joseph Rotblat’s Interview

Joseph Rotblat