Fifty years of nuclear fission

Today, people think of nuclear fission in terms of its applications to energy production or to manufacture of nuclear arms. Fifty years ago, however, and in the ensuing few years, fission was a new, unexpected phenomenonwhich excited physicists all over the world. This article gives a personal recollection of those years as seen through the eyes of a member of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. 5 refs., 2 figs