Possible Existence of a Neutron (Chadwick). (Bound with:) Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction (Meitner and Frisch). (Withbound:) Physical Evidence for the Division of Heavy Nuclei under Neutron Bombardment. (Frisch). . - [DISCOVERY OF THE NEUTRON - THE ATOMIC BOMB.]

London, Nature, 1932 a.1939. 4to. Blank wrappers. All 4 extracted from "Nature" Nos. 3252 (Febr. 1932), 3615 (Febr.1939), 3616 ( Febr. 1939) and 3620 (March 1939). All four papers in first edition. In 1932 James Chadwich proved the existence of th atomic particles carrying no electric charge which, for this reason, he called 'neutrons' (the first item offered here). "In 1934 Senator Corbino, head of the physics department at the University of Rome, urged Enrico Fermi and his collaborators, among whom was Brune Pontecorvo, to patent a proces they had perfected for the production of artificial radio-activity by slow neutron bombardement. This process was a by-product of repetitions and enlargements of a discovery by Irene Curie and her husband Fredeic Joliot that the bombardment of certain light elements with alpha particles induced radio-activity. Further experiments conducted in 1938 at Berlin by Hahn and Strassmann were reported by Lise Meitner.She and her nephew, O.R. Frisch, working with Niels Bohr's laboratory, found the true explanation of these phenomena. The interpolation of a neutron into the nucleus of a uranium atom caused it to divide into two parts and to release energy amounting to about 200,000,000 electron volts. This process bore such a close similarity to the division of a living cell that Frisch suggested the use of the term 'fission' to describe it.Halban, Jolio and Kowarski established the theoretical possibility of a self-perpetuating reaction." (Carter/Muir). - Printing and the Mind of Man No. 422,b,c and d.