Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists

An extremely fascinating read. Published over 60 years ago, it has the quality of feeling both like a historical document and a work written with time to contemplate the consequences of the atomic bomb. It is both riveting and sobering. The storytelling skill of the author kept me intellectually and emotionally involved from start to finish. I originally read it as an undergrad roughly thirty years ago. Back then, I was more awed by the lives of the young scientists but this time I was more struck by the hubris of scientists and government officials. The recent release of the film about Oppenheimer drew me back to this book. While I highly recommend the book, I would suggest both to myself and others to follow up this reading with some show more equally well written account published another twenty or more years later. show less

One of the New Scientist Top 25 Most Influential Popular Science Books (all of which I plan to read eventually), and mentioned in a recent read by Martin Gardner.

Fascinating. Part history, part biography, part political commentary, part social commentary, and part melodrama ("But Teller was not made to march with the rank and file.") unkind to Oppenheimer, but then the times and history were unkind...an unkindness that unfortunately passed to his children, or at least his daughter.

Jungk seemed at times in this English translation full of adoration for these scientists and at other times condemning. I wonder if the German (Jungk was Austrian) original was as lyrical, poetic, or dramatic as the translation. Though I took German in high show more school, I remember near none and have no intention of reading this in its original language, so must be content with this. Again, fascinating...and as a young man, I might have read it with less of a skeptical eye. Still, an enjoyable read. show less

The first history of the bomb project, written when some detailed were not quite public. If you are looking for one book to read on the bomb, this is not the choice. If you are interested in the bomb in general, an excellent piece of literary history. Well written.

A perspective on the atomic scientists from their own time by someone who knew them. Not easy to get that from a current history

was Heller als tausend Sonnen first published Alfred Scherz Verlag 1956
this translation first published great britain Gollancz and Hart-Davis 1958
published as Penguin Special 160
reprinted in Pelican Books 1964, 1965, 1970, 1982

When i first read this in 1961 i thought it astoundingly good, it covered what appeared "the whole ground" of A-Bomb development with a large quantity of what appeared well researched biographical, political and scientific detail in very readable form.
having now read considerably more on the subject i now think it a very worthwhile read as long as it is only part of reading on the subject. some of the biographic writing appears to indicate the (inevitable) bias' of the author, and much of the physics is show more (inevitably) erred.
whoah, all this sounds excessively diparaging of a very worthwhile book made very available very promptly in its career. show less

Reviewed in the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard:

http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/10/dimmer-than-thousand-fools-...

The first book-length collective biography of atomic scientists - decades before any English example.