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History.
Science.
Nonfiction.
HTML:The definitive history of nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. From the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan, Richard Rhodes's Pulitzer Prizeâ??winning book details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans' race to beat Hitler's Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychologyâ??from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence.
From nuclear power's earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story.
Richard Rhodes's ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful… (more)
gneimer: An interesting biography of two men who helped shape the atomic era. Rhodes pulls quite a bit of information from this book. A study in contrast between Lawrence and Oppenheimer.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." - Bhagavad Gita
The quote from the Bhagavad Gita was Oppenheimer's reaction to the test bomb, the Trinity, carried out on July 15, 1945. Up until that time, the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were not completely sure if the bomb would work. Shortly before the test, Fermi "offered to take wagers from his fellow scientists on whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so whether it would merely destroy the world." (p. 665)
The book chronicles verbose detail, the scientific discoveries, historical events, and political decisions that led to the new and most cruel bomb" (Emperor Hirohito) to ignite over Japan in August of 1945. The horror it unleashed is described in the last chapter. Survivors are quoted and their accounts are painful to read. "In my mind's eye, like a waking dream, I could see the tongues of fire at work on the bodies of men." - Masugi Ibuse, "Black Rain
Many of the scientists were horrified at the bomb's use, but as one survivor asked, "Those scientists who invented the bomb, wrote a young woman who was a fourth-grade student at Horsima- "what did they think would happen if they dropped it?" ( )
Hard to imagine a world without the A-Bomb. Also hard to imagine how a small group of Jewish scientist emigres convinced the US Government to make the biggest investment in weaponry ever based on a belief that the Nazi's would get there first. But they did, and the Nazi's didn't. Thank goodness. ( )
I was very impressed with the work the author put into this book. I got an overview of the development of the nuclear physics field from 1900 forward thru WWII. I got a better understanding of the decision making process for German scientists as they departed Germany under Hitler. I got a new understanding of the amount of chemistry work required as they tried various ways to create a chain reaction, and manage it. I got a better grasp of the magnitude (and pace!) of the Manhattan Project. I got a better understanding of how the rationale to drop the bomb on a city was made. Part of this was a better grasp of the nature of the fire-bombing of German cities and its rationale - which was lead up to the nuclear bomb decision. And finally, painfully, I got a painful grasp of the devastation of the bomb when dropped. ( )
A very comprehensive account of the making of the atomic bomb. For me, a bit too comprehensive - but then again, history has never been my best subject. :) ( )
In London, where Southampton Row passes Russel Square, across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight to change.
Quotations
Early in 1945 Oak Ridge began shipping bomb-grade U235 to Los Alamos. Between shipments Groves took no chance with a substance far more valuable gram for gram than diamonds. Although the Army had condemned all the land and ejected the original inhabitants from the Clinton reservation area, at the dead end of a dusty reservation back road cattle grazed on a pasture beside a white farmhouse. A concrete silo towered over the road which was sheltered by a steep bluff. From the air the scene resembled any number of small Tennessee holdings, but the silo was a machine-gun emplacement, the farm was manned by security guards, and built into the side of the bluff a concrete bunker shielded a bank-sized vault completely encircled with guarded walkways. In this pastoral fortress Groves stored his accumulating grams of U235. Armed couriers transported it as uranium tetrafluoride in special luggage by car to Knoxville, where they boarded the overnight express to Chicago. They passed on the luggage the next morning to their Chicago counterparts, who held a reserved space on the Santa Fe Chief. Twenty-six hours later, in midafternoon, the Chicago couriers debarked at Lamy, the stranded desert way station that served Santa Fe. Los Alamos security men met the train and completed the transfer to the Hill, where chemists waited eagerly to reduce the rare cargo to metal.
Last words
The different country that still opens before us is Bohr's open world.
History.
Science.
Nonfiction.
HTML:The definitive history of nuclear weapons and the Manhattan Project. From the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan, Richard Rhodes's Pulitzer Prizeâ??winning book details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb. This sweeping account begins in the 19th century, with the discovery of nuclear fission, and continues to World War Two and the Americans' race to beat Hitler's Nazis. That competition launched the Manhattan Project and the nearly overnight construction of a vast military-industrial complex that culminated in the fateful dropping of the first bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reading like a character-driven suspense novel, the book introduces the players in this saga of physics, politics, and human psychologyâ??from FDR and Einstein to the visionary scientists who pioneered quantum theory and the application of thermonuclear fission, including Planck, Szilard, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller, Meitner, von Neumann, and Lawrence.
From nuclear power's earliest foreshadowing in the work of H.G. Wells to the bright glare of Trinity at Alamogordo and the arms race of the Cold War, this dread invention forever changed the course of human history, and The Making of The Atomic Bomb provides a panoramic backdrop for that story.
Richard Rhodes's ability to craft compelling biographical portraits is matched only by his rigorous scholarship. Told in rich human, political, and scientific detail that any reader can follow, The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a thought-provoking and masterful
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Wikipedia in English (41)
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The quote from the Bhagavad Gita was Oppenheimer's reaction to the test bomb, the Trinity, carried out on July 15, 1945. Up until that time, the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were not completely sure if the bomb would work. Shortly before the test, Fermi "offered to take wagers from his fellow scientists on whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so whether it would merely destroy the world." (p. 665)
The book chronicles verbose detail, the scientific discoveries, historical events, and political decisions that led to the new and most cruel bomb" (Emperor Hirohito) to ignite over Japan in August of 1945. The horror it unleashed is described in the last chapter. Survivors are quoted and their accounts are painful to read.
"In my mind's eye, like a waking dream, I could see the tongues of fire at work on the bodies of men." - Masugi Ibuse, "Black Rain
Many of the scientists were horrified at the bomb's use, but as one survivor asked, "Those scientists who invented the bomb, wrote a young woman who was a fourth-grade student at Horsima- "what did they think would happen if they dropped it?"
(