The World Set Free

According to Wikipedia, The World Set Free is a novel published in 1914 by H. G. Wells. The book is considered to foretell nuclear weapons. A constant theme of Wells's work, such as his 1901 nonfiction book Anticipations, was the effect of energy and technological advance as a determinant of human progress. The novel begins: "The history of mankind is the history of the attainment of external power. Man is the tool-using, fire-making animal." Scientists of the time were well aware that the slow natural radioactive decay of elements like radium continues for thousands of years, and that while the rate of energy release is negligible, the total amount released is huge. Wells used this as the basis for his story. In his fiction, he writes: The problem which was already being mooted by such scientific men as Ramsay, Rutherford, and Soddy, in the very beginning of the twentieth century, the problem of inducing radio-activity in the heavier elements and so tapping the internal energy of atoms, was solved by a wonderful combination of induction, intuition, and luck by Holsten so soon as the year 1933. The physicist Leo Szilard read the book during 1932, conceived the idea of nuclear chain reaction during 1933, and filed for patents for it during 1934. Soddy's book Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt praises The World Set Free.