The Man Upstairs

This is a book about scientist Frederick Lindemann, professor of physics at the University of Oxford from 1919 to 1954, and close friend and scientific adviser to Winston Churchill during the Second World War and the invention of the atomic bomb. As a scientist and politician, the life story of Frederick Lindemann provides a unique insight into the impact of science on the most dramatic period of Europe's history: the development of the atomic bomb and two catastrophic world wars. Lindemann was a professor of physics at the University of Oxford from 1919 to 1954, as well as a close friend and adviser to Winston Churchill. Being a former pupil of Niels Bohr, one of the pioneers of quantum theory, and having previously worked with Albert Einstein, Lindemann was personally acquainted with some of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. He was admitted to the House of Lords in 1941, during the Second World War. The Man Upstairs: Frederick Lindemann, Scientific Adviser to Winston Churchill explores the science and politics of Lindemann during a period of the most consequential developments in science, from the identification of quantum theory to the cataclysmic discovery and use of atomic weapons. Raised in England by a German father and American mother, Frederick's teenage and university education was in Germany. He later returned to England after his early career in Berlin was disrupted by the First World War, and his youthful sentiments were split between his Germanic origins and loyalty to his adopted home. These internal conflicts developed into a hatred of Germany and a tortured personality which dominated his dealings with others in his social and professional life. Lindemann's time at university in Berlin was interrupted by the onset of the First World War, but he used his scientific contacts to secure an academic position at the University of Oxford in 1919. Here he became attracted to the highest circles of English society. He was the only Oxford professor to have a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, and soon became a close friend of Winston Churchill. As Churchill's science guru, Lindemann was increasingly involved in politics leading up to the Second World War and, following the onset of hostilities, became a member of the War Cabinet. Here, his life in science defines the perspective, and Lindemann's contributions to science are critically examined, including some contemporary opinions which have heralded him as "the most influential scientist of the 20th Century".