One of the truly great tragedies in the history of science was the death of Henry G. J. Moseley on August 10, 1915, in Gallipoli, Turkey. Moseley had enlisted in the Royal Engineers at the outbreak of World War I and had sailed for Turkey on June 15, 1915. During the Battle of Suvla Bay, a sniper's bullet ended his life. Thus, at the age of twenty-seven, one of England's most promising scientists met the end of his career.

Moseley was born in Weymouth, England, on November 23, 1887. He came from a family with a long scientific tradition. His father had been professor of anatomy at Oxford and his grandfather had been a well-known mathematician. Moseley studied natural science at Eton and Oxford and then, in 1910, joined Ernest Rutherford at Manchester. His first research involved the study of beta emission from radium. He then turned his attention to the research for which he...