ABSTRACT
The Getliffe character is largely modelled on the physicist P.M.S. Blackett (1897-1974), Nobel laureate in physics in 1948.3 Lord Snow knew Blackett well. During the late 1920s and early 1930s their paths frequently crossed in Cambridge where Blackett was working in Ernest Rutherford’s Cavendish Laboratory and Snow was engaged in molecular
spectroscopy while a Fellow at Christ’s College.4 In the war years and afterwards, they met in government ministries in London, and in the 1950s they were part of the dinner group of scientists and politicians who were convened to advise Hugh Gaitskell and Harold Wilson on science policy for the Labour Party. Thus, Snow knew precisely Blackett’s position on nuclear policy, as well as the outrage it provoked in the US and the UK.5
