John Cockcroft talks about all the new discoveries around 1932 and how they found out about them.

Weiner:

One of the things that’s particularly interesting about that year is that so many things happened together. Did you have a feeling when all of these things were beginning to break that this was the opening up of a new field? Or did you feel that it was just the fruition of work that was a continuing tradition?

Cockcroft:

Well, I think it was a general acceleration of progress which was really very largely due to the introduction of new techniques: new electronic counting methods and methods of applying high voltages to acceleration of particles, Geiger counter controlled expansion chambers — in the case of Blackett and Occhialini. There were all these new techniques which had been developing for three or four years in the labs and suddenly blossomed and bore fruit.

Weiner:

How do you account for these developing in this short period? You mentioned that there was a great deal of discussion, and I assumed this was either at the colloquia or at the Kapitsa Club.

Cockcroft:

Yes, as a result of these very frequent discussions, very intense discussions, we were very fully informed of what was going on in other countries — in Copenhagen, in Germany and France. So we would discuss the latest papers in the various journals within one or two weeks of their publication. There was no time lost in taking advantage of the latest developments overseas. For example, the work of Curie and Joliot was known in the lab within a few days.