Saturday Scenes

On the 29th of December in 1911, Klaus Fuchs was born in Russelsheim, Germany. He emigrated to England in 1933 and in 1941, after receiving his doctorate in Physics from the University of Bristol, he was invited to work on the British atomic bomb research project. In 1943, he was sent to the US to collaborate on the atom bomb development at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

However, Fuchs couldn’t understand why the collaboration between the UK, the US and Canada excluded the Soviet Union, their ally in the war. Fuchs was a supporter of communist politics and believed the Russians were leading the future. Initially, he secretly shared his own work with Russian informants. But soon, he was telling them all about the nuclear tests conducted in the New Mexican desert.

That August 1945 was a difficult time for the Los Alamos scientists. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from all reports, were even more devastating than they had imagined. Klaus was not certain that he had made the right decision. Yet, Klaus believed, the weapon was too powerful to remain in the custody of a single power. If such a force had to exist, it had to exist in such a way that no nation would be tempted to ever use it again.

Fuchs gave his contact the initial drafts for the development of a hydrogen bomb and the results of US testing with uranium and plutonium.

Fuchs confessed after the war and was sentenced to the maximum penalty for passing military secrets to a friendly nation: fourteen years imprisonment. Upon his release, he moved to East Germany to resume his scientific work.

Meanwhile, one hundred and one years exactly after he was born, an explosion of photographs were taken to celebrate the final Saturday of the year:

And here are the rocket scientists who took them:

• martin_chrisj
• icklemouse
• akaSylvia
• JanetIsserlis
• oxonlady
• pixelesh
• robdavies
• akrabat
• carocat
• ernmander
• WadeyLady001
• HeideSpruck
• JeannieKelly
• FrauKulli
• davey_steven
• ingridf
• HarryMyhre
• drewbenn
• mousewords
• jamesnnb
• raumsinn
• maidbloke
• 77LynnColeman
• dudleypj
• CliffStanford
• CarolineBignell
• dndtsa
• fembat

And that is the last collection for the year 2012. Next week, we’ll be counting down the top ten submitters for the year.

Who will submit the first Saturday scene for 2013? Who will be the first to populate our brand new Saturday Scene list for the year? Be sure to join us on Twitter tomorrow to find out!