• 195. Nuclear Physicist or Soviet Spy? The Enigma of Bruno Pontecorvo with Dr. Frank Close

  • May 5 2025
  • Length: 1 hr and 9 mins
  • Podcast

195. Nuclear Physicist or Soviet Spy? The Enigma of Bruno Pontecorvo with Dr. Frank Close

  • Summary

  • Today Justin talks with Dr. Frank Close. Frank is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford. He was formerly the head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Vice President of the British Science Association, and Head of Communications and Public Understanding at CERN. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and won their Michael Faraday Medal for Excellence in Science Communication in 2013. He received the order of the British Empire for Services to Research and the public understanding of science in 2000. He's also the author of 22 books about science. This week here's here discuss the story of Dr. Bruno Pontecorvo, a pioneer in the field of nuclear physics who worked on atomic research before, during and after World War II, and who was also a devoted communist ideologue. Bruno and his family disappeared behind the Iron Curtain in 1950, setting up a decades long mystery as to whether or not he'd been a Soviet spy all along.

    Connect with Frank:

    Twitter/X: @CloseFrank

    Check out the book, Half Life, here.

    https://a.co/d/3u0VPsP


    Connect with Spycraft 101:
    Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.
    spycraft101.com
    IG: @spycraft101
    Shop: shop.spycraft101.com
    Patreon: Spycraft 101

    Find Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.
    Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.
    Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.

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