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Article: Joseph Rotblat: the road less traveled.(founder of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs)
- Article from:
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In December, Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which Rotblat helped establish, received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1995. The Nobel Committee said that it hoped the award would "encourage world leaders to intensify their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons." That dream--nuclear abolition-has animated Rotblat for 50 years.
Rotblat was born in Warsaw on November 4, 1908. Poland was still a peasant nation with a thin veneer of sophisticated city gentry. Rotblat was the fifth of seven children (the oldest two died in infancy). His parents were Jewish; his father, Zygmunt, was in the paper transport business. The family was ...