Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) was a Polish-born British physicist and a leading critic of nuclear weaponry.
Born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, Rotblat studied physics at the University of Warsaw. During World War II, he worked on nuclear energy and weapons development at Liverpool University and Los Alamos, New Mexico. He left the Manhattan Project in 1944 when it became apparent that Germany had no nuclear weapons.
Dismayed by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Rotblat turned his attention to radiation and health, later teaching at St Bartholomew’s Medical Hospital, London (1950–76.) In 1955, he joined prominent scientists such as physicist Albert Einstein to sign a manifesto written by British philosopher Bertrand Russell that criticized the proliferation of nuclear arms.
Rotblat was a founder, secretary-general 1957–73 and president 1988–97 of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a forum for scientists wishing to campaign for nuclear disarmament. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 (jointly with the Pugwash organization he helped to found) for his work in this area, and in honor of the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to protest against French nuclear tests in the Pacific.
Rotblat’s many publications take in the range of nuclear politics including military strategy, weapons proliferation, and arms control verification, as well as works on nuclear physics.
Notable biographies include Reiner Braun’s Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace (2007) and Andrew Brown’s Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience: The Life and Work of Joseph Rotblat (2012.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Joseph Rotblat
All nuclear weapon states should now recognize that this is so, and declare – in Treaty form – that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would open the way to the gradual, mutual reduction of nuclear arsenals, down to zero.
—Joseph Rotblat
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Arthur Rubinstein American Pianist
Isaiah Berlin British Philosopher, Historian
David Bohm American Physicist
Marie Curie Polish-born French Physicist
Edward Teller American Nuclear Physicist
Peter Medawar British Immunologist, Writer
Maurice Wilkins British Biophysicist
Albert Einstein German-born Theoretical Physicist
Aaron Klug English Biophysicist
T. S. Eliot American-born British Poet