H.G. Wells predicted nuclear weapons and atomic warfare in 1914 on Soddy’s physics

Evidence

Yet, writing in 1914, just before the outbreak of the Great War, H. G. Wells did make such a prediction, influenced by the physicist Frederick Soddy, a collaborator of Ernest Rutherford. Wells’s book, The World Set Free, recounts the story of a war which erupts in Europe in 1958, from there spreading throughout the world. In the war, a terrible weapon is used, constructed from a radioactive substance called Carolinum. Hundreds of these bombs, which Wells called “atomic bombs,” are dropped on the world’s cities, causing immense devastation. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 146

Categorization

• SHARE: A niche fact for anyone fascinated by prediction accuracy or the physics-into-science-fiction pipeline.
• CANDY: Wells foresaw ‘atomic bombs’ and a world war erupting from Europe in 1958—fun trivia for a cocktail conversation.