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Dukasaur wrote:Phase 2]After the work of Becquerel and the Curies, the leadership in atomic research passed to Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford's early work was done at McGill University in Canada with Frederick Soddy, but he soon moved to Manchester University in England. Today known as the father of atomic physics, Rutherford developed the planetary model of the atom, identified the differences between alpha, beta, and gamma particles, and discovered the proton. Rutherford was the first to observe a nuclear reaction, and his students Cockcroft and Walton were the first to create a fully artificial nuclear reaction. Other great physicists associated with Rutherford to some degree included George de Hevesy, Neils Bohr, and James Chadwick. Chadwick would go on to discover the neutron, which was the next step on the road to controlled fusion.
35 players in 5 groups will play 7-player games on the England map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
Phase 3]While practical work in atomic research was centred in England and France, the theoretical backbone of nuclear physics was being built in Germany. Max Planck, Walther Nernst, James Franck, Gustav Hertz, Wolfgang Pauli, Max von Laue and Erwin Shroedinger all made contributions to our theoretical understanding of the universe at the atomic level. The greatest breakthrough of all was Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity, and its inevitable result, the theory of mass-energy equivalence.
30 players in 5 groups will play 6-player games on the Germany map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
Dukasaur wrote:Players succumbing to radiation poisoning in Cavendish's labratory include Lufsen75, nicarus, Mr_chopper, chidone, and Marshallbobby.
We are ready for Phase 3.
Dukasaur wrote:Phase 4]In 1923 Enrico Fermi of Italy was the first to point out that Einstein's mass-equivalence equation offered a source of energy that could be harnessed. Almost twenty years would pass before he could demonstrate this power, but the idea began to spread. Fermi also developed the first complete model of beta decay.
25 players in 5 groups will play 5-player games on the Italy map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
Dukasaur wrote:Phase 7]At the outbreak of the war, important players in nuclear research were in Scandinavia. Otto Hahn's key research partner, Lise Meitner, had fled to Stockholm. Neils Bohr, probably the world's foremost expert on atomic structure, was in Copenhagen. Heisenberg visited Bohr and made some effort to lure him to work in the German nuclear program, but it was probably half-hearted as Heisenberg himself was not completely sold on the idea. Eventually Bohr also escaped to Stockholm and later to the U.S., joining the Manhattan Project.
The biggest prize was the Vemork plant in Telemark, Norway, the only plant in the world producing heavy water in commercial quantities. The German government had already offered to buy the entire production of the plant when the French secret service beat them to the punch. The world's reserve of heavy water was smuggled to Paris, and when Paris fell, to Birmingham.
Captured by the Germans, the Vemork plant remained in production until several expeditions by Norwegian partisans, supported by the British Secret Service and the R.A.F., eventually succeeded in destroying it.
14 players in 2 groups will play 7-player games on the Nordic Nations map. The first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
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