The comment by Enola Gay’s tailgunner “Sir, are we splitting atoms today?” shows that the concept was not totally unknown. And I recall Laurence’s article several years ago about a block of urnaium providing far greater energy than coal being used to power submarines and ships.
“Sir, are we splitting atoms today?”
“I have always been interested in physics and chemistry,” Handl said, adding he just wanted to “see if it’s possible to split atoms at home.”
Another perspective on splitting atoms at home
http://www.mrjam.org/2012/03/how-to-split-atoms-at-home.html
“We want to split an atom as a kind of home science project. We have loads of atoms around the house which we’re not really using.”