Introduction

A discussion of the developments in nuclear physics that led to the discovery of fission.  These include Francis Aston's development of the mass spectrometer, George Gamow, Neils Bohr and Charles Weisacker and the development of the Liquid-Drop Model of the nucleus, the work of Otto Hahn at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch in discovering nuclear fission and both H. G. Wells and Leo Szilard's prophetic predictions of the development of atomic weapons.