ABSTRACT
Nuclear physics dominated the agenda of an International Conference on Physics, that began in London at the Royal Institution on 2 October 1934. Ernest Rutherford opened the gathering with a survey titled simply ’Opening Survey’. From London the Conference relocated to Cambridge on 4 October, on Rutherford’s invitation, for VIPs to behold the fine facilities comprising the Cavendish Laboratory. The London/Cambridge meeting heralded the disintegration of Rutherford’s coterie of brilliant collaborators and disciples. In August 1935, as a result of talking with English colleagues visiting Moscow, Anna Kapitza wrote to Rutherford, confirming that the Soviet Government was prepared to purchase the Mond equipment. Whereas the Cavendish, following one brilliant discovery after another under Rutherford, M. L. E. Oliphant and T. E. Allibone Cockcroft, was turning to entirely new areas of research, the American laboratories were poised to take center stage in nuclear physics.
