by Donn Downey, The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, May 3, 2000
John Robson, a nuclear scientist who played a key role in harnessing the power of atomic energy, died of cancer in hospital in Peterborough, Ont., on Saturday. He was 80.
Dr. Robson was working for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in Chalk River in the late 1 940s after Canada had been assigned the task of developing a peacetime use for nuclear energy.
Up to that time, nuclear fission, which was the principle behind the atomic bomb, was uncontrolled. Robson concentrated his research on the neutron, the key that unlocks the explosive power the bomb.
When a neutron hits the core of a radioactive element, the core splits, emitting other neutrons and energy. These other neutrons strike more cores and release more energy in a chain reaction to produce the massive force of an atomic explosion.
Dr. Robson was able to establish that neutrons change quickly into harmless protons and electrons.
"It represented the first stepping stone in developing a peaceful use of atomic energy," Dr. Robson's son, Peter, said yesterday.
When Dr. Robson released his findings in a paper presented to the American Physical Society in 1949, U.S. atomic scientists hailed it as "the first conclusive evidence" of the theory of neutron disintegration.
While Dr. Robson was working at Chalk River, he occasionally lectured at the University of Ottawa. He enjoyed it and in 1960, he left AECL to accept a post as chair of its department of physics. While he was there, Cambridge invited him to write his doctoral thesis on the work he had done at Chalk River. In 1963, he was granted his doctor of science degree.
After eight years at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Robson was hired by McGill University as chair of the department of physics. He retired in 1985.
John Michael Robson was born in London on March 26, 1920, and was educated at a British public school in Bristol. He enrolled at Cambridge University in 1939 and, after graduating in 1942, worked on radar research for the wartime government. After the Second World War, he wrote his thesis on his radar work, earning an MA from Cambridge in 1945.
Later that year, Dr. Robson came to Canada as part of a British-Canadian scientific team working on nuclear research. The British team returned to England but Dr. Robson remained in Canada to work on the first nuclear reactor.
At Chalk River, he was responsible for the design of the reactor. A major concern was an effective shield to protect workers from radiation. It led to his work on the neutron.
He leaves his wife Nora; his children, Lisa, Michael and Peter, and five grandchildren.
Additional information on John Robson may be found here,
on the web site of the Canadian Association of Physicists.