The World Set Free

The World Set Free is a science fiction novel written by H.G. Wells in 1914.

In this prescient story, Wells draws on his physics knowledge of radioactivity and atomic energy to develop ideas such as the highly destructive atomic bombs and the overall impact of atomic energy on society.

Written during 1913, the novel seems to anticipate the major conflicts that would occur a year later. In the novel, the great world powers vie for control of the world through the opportunity afforded by atomic energy and initiate a world war.

The novel focuses on the point of view of different characters and how human society has been transformed after the conflict in search of a better future. Many of the ideas put forward by Wells have been fulfilled and there are others that, although they have not yet arrived, may appear in the future as the idea of a single world government to end all armed conflicts.

"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."