In 1901, Frederick Soddy and Ernest Rutherford discovered that radioactivity was part of the process by which atoms changed from one kind to another, involving the release of energy. Soddy wrote in popular magazines that radioactivity was a potentially « inexhaustible » source of energy, and offered a vision of an atomic future where it would be possible to « transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole earth one smiling Garden of Eden. » The promise of an « atomic age, » with nuclear energy as the global, utopian technology for the satisfaction of human needs, has been a recurring theme ever since. But « Soddy also saw that atomic energy could possibly be used to create terrible new weapons »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Age