Emeritus Fellow Prof Frank Close to publish Half Life: The divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy

In March 2015 Emeritus Fellow in Physics Professor Frank Close will publish his latest book, Half Life: The divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy.

Bruno Pontecorvo was a brilliant nuclear physicist who disappeared through the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. This decision, which split his life into two almost equal halves, probably cost him a share of at least one Nobel Prize.

As a student of Enrico Fermi before the Second World War Pontecorvo had discovered the key to nuclear power and atomic weapons. Then he worked in the Manhattan Project, and at Harwell.

Half Life explores the mystery that surrounded Pontecorvo’s sudden disappearance, his immense value to the Soviet Union, and how he missed the Nobel Prize.

Half Life will be published by OneWorld Publications (UK) and Basic Books (USA). You can read more about the book here.