<P> In January 1933 , Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany and it quickly became unsafe for Jewish scientists to remain in the country . Leó Szilárd fled to London where he proposed , and in 1934 patented , the idea of a nuclear chain reaction via neutrons . The patent also introduced the term critical mass to describe the minimum amount of material required to sustain the chain reaction and its potential to cause an explosion . ( British patent 630,726 . ) He subsequently assigned the patent to the British Admiralty so that it could be covered by the Official Secrets Act . In a very real sense , Szilárd was the father of the atomic bomb academically . Also in 1934 , Irène and Frédéric Joliot - Curie discovered that artificial radioactivity could be induced in stable elements by bombarding them with alpha particles ; Enrico Fermi reported similar results when bombarding uranium with neutrons . </P>
<P> In January 1933 , Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany and it quickly became unsafe for Jewish scientists to remain in the country . Leó Szilárd fled to London where he proposed , and in 1934 patented , the idea of a nuclear chain reaction via neutrons . The patent also introduced the term critical mass to describe the minimum amount of material required to sustain the chain reaction and its potential to cause an explosion . ( British patent 630,726 . ) He subsequently assigned the patent to the British Admiralty so that it could be covered by the Official Secrets Act . In a very real sense , Szilárd was the father of the atomic bomb academically . Also in 1934 , Irène and Frédéric Joliot - Curie discovered that artificial radioactivity could be induced in stable elements by bombarding them with alpha particles ; Enrico Fermi reported similar results when bombarding uranium with neutrons . </P>
who came up with the idea of nuclear bombs
who came up with the idea of nuclear bombs
Leó Szilárd
Leó Szilárd