by Tim Sherratt
[a continuing saga...]

atomic wonderland

The history of the `atomic age' in Australia is a subject that I've been interested in for many years. At the moment I'm trying to pull a decade's worth of research and ideas together to submit as a PhD under the working title, `Atomic wonderland: science and progress in twentieth century Australia'.

My understanding of what constitutes the 'atomic age' has changed somewhat over the years. In particular, I've become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that the destruction of Hiroshima marks some sort of dividing line - the beginning of a new age. Rather than taking this starting point for granted, I want to explore the sense of newness that accompanied the bomb, tracing its antecedents and implications. All of this, of course, is an attempt to justify the fact that my history of the atomic age now stretches over most of the twentieth century and is looking more and more like a cultural history of Australian science. Just a nice little, self-contained project...

One of my main areas of interest is the nature of progress, and its relationship with science. I started to examine this in a seminar paper I gave in 2000, and later revised for publication, see:

• `Frontiers of the future: Science and progress in twentieth century Australia' (edited version of seminar paper), November 2000 [READ]
• `Frontiers of the future: Science and progress in twentieth century Australia', History Program, ANU, 12 October 2000 [READ]

• '"The attributes of a god" - Science and the Australian public, 1901-21', History Program, ANU, 24 June 1999
  [READ]

[up]

if at first you don't succeed...

Like I said, I've been working on the atomic age for a long, long time. At times the project has seemed impossible - an ever-expanding mass of connections and contradictions, punctuated by fleeting moments of clarity. I've made a few attempts at putting some ideas together, though I've never been entirely satisfied. Anyway, I think there's still some useful stuff here:

• `On the Beach: Australia's Nuclear History', paper delivered at French Worlds, Pacific Worlds, July 1996. [READ]
• 'Political Fallout - Australian scientists and the atomic bomb', Australasian Science, Spring 1996, p.64 [READ AT BRIGHT SPARCS]
• 'The crossroads of destiny' - Choosing a future in atomic Australia', Australian War Memorial Conference, 1995. [READ]
• `"A physicist would be best out of it": George Briggs at the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission', Voices, Autumn 1993. [READ]
• 'Phyllis in atomic wonderland', AAHPSSS Annual Conference, 1992 [READ]

• Review of Clarence Hardy, Atomic rise and fall and Enriching experiences, Historical Records of Australian Science, 2000 [READ]
• `Atomic testing', in Oxford Companion to Australian History, 1998, pp. 42-3. [READ DRAFT]

british atomic tests

My interest in things atomic began back in the 1980s, when I was in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Melbourne. My honours thesis examined the role of Australian scientists in the British atomic tests of the 1950s (yep, Maralinga and all that), see:

• `Australian Scientists at the British Atomic Tests', in Science Show 2, Robyn Williams (ed.), Nelson, 1985. [READ]
• `"A political inconvenience" - Australian scientists at the British atomic weapons tests, 1952-1953', Historical Records of Australian Science, 1985. [READ]