Within the closing years of the nineteenth century, scientists started recording unusual phenomena – mysterious glowing fuel, smudges on photographic plates. Findings like these triggered a technique of scientific discovery within the subject of nuclear physics that may in the end result in unprecedented devastation on the finish of the Second World Struggle. Talking to Matt Elton, Frank Shut charts the story of the nuclear age.
Frank Shut is the writer of Destroyer of Worlds: The Deep Historical past of the Nuclear Age: 1895-1965 (Allen Lane, 2025).