Synopses & Reviews
It was at the height of the Cold War, in the summer of 1950, when Bruno Pontecorvo mysteriously vanished behind the Iron Curtain. Who was he, and what caused him to disappear? Was he simply a physicist, or also a spy and communist radical? A protégé of Enrico Fermi, Pontecorvo was one of the most promising nuclear physicists in the world. He spent years hunting for the Higgs boson of his daythe neutrinoa nearly massless particle thought to be essential to the process of particle decay. His work on the Manhattan Project helped to usher in the nuclear age, and confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist. Why, then, would he disappear as he stood on the cusp of true greatness, perhaps even the Nobel Prize?
In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvos life, based on unprecedented access to Pontecorvos friends and family and the Russian scientists with whom he would later work. Close takes a microscope to Pontecorvos life, combining a thorough biography of one of the most important scientsts of the twentieth century with the drama of Cold War espionage. With all the elements of a Cold War thrillerclassified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a possible kidnapping by Soviet operativesHalf-Life is a history of nuclear physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.
Review
PRAISE FOR HALF-LIFE:
"Half-Life is a riveting Cold War mystery about a scientist whose life was as elusive as the particles he studied. Frank Close paints a fascinating portrait of the enigmatic man who helped bring the mysteries of neutrinos to the worlds attention, while slipping in and out of public view and presumed to be a spy for the Soviets. Impeccably researched, Half-Life masterfully illuminates its shadowy target, offering a lucid assessment of Bruno Pontecorvos vital scientific contributions." Paul Halpern, author of Einsteins Dice and Schrödingers Cat
Review
PRAISE FOR HALF-LIFE:Laura Helmuth, New York Times Book Review
The five-year disappearance of the brilliant Italian physicist Bruno Pontecorvo is one of the Cold Wars enduring mysteries, and the subject of this riveting study.”
Nature Physics
What sets Closes work apart is that, in addition to bringing to light new archival material obtained from the UK intelligence agency MI5, it also describes in detail the context and significance of Pontecorvos research over the course of his career.... Whereas the book will inevitably attract readers interested in a good story about espionage, Half-Life is also a masterful reappraisal of Pontecorvos scientific achievements.”
Science
Half-Life is more of a general biography of Pontecorvo, one simultaneously personal, political, and scientific.... [Close anchors] the narrative in archival discoveries, personal connections, and interviews.”
Peter Woit, Not Even Wrong
[A] gripping spy story, investigating the question of exactly why Pontecorvo fled with his family to the Soviet Union in 1950.... Besides the fascinating spy story, theres also a lot of history of nuclear physics during the 30s, 40s and 50s
as well as quite a bit about Pontecorvos later work on neutrinos. If youre interested in the history of 20th century physics, this is something youll find well worth reading.”
Freeman Dyson, New York Review of Books
Close tells the story of Pontecorvos life in sharp detail, with all the facts and conjectures carefully documented.”
Wall Street Journal
It is a remarkable storypart physics and part Cold War intrigueand it is wonderfully told in Half-Life, a biography by the Oxford physicist Frank Close.... There is much about this tale that has the flavor of a le Carré novel, with the additional advantage that it is all true.”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
[D]elves into a man and a mystery that deserve to be better known.”
The Economist
[A]n engrossing new book.... But [Pontecorvos] alleged deceit is only half of the story. Mr. Close, a physicist himself, also explains the science that made him so valuable.”
Nature
Too many books are fêted as reading like spy novels, but Closes work deserves the accolade. He makes a good circumstantial case for Pontecorvo being a spy.”
Open Letters Monthly
[U]tterly absorbing.... Close brings a great deal of new and groundbreaking research to the question of whether or not Pontecorvo had been an active spy even before he and his family defected.... Half-Life is a remarkably thorough analysis
a grim and depressing double-history of one of the worst and most fascinating traitors of the atomic arms race that defined a generation. The fact that the books readers will close its final page knowing much, much more about nuclear physics than they did when they started it is a very pleasing by-product, to use a loaded term.”
Washington Post
[Half-Life] ranges over physics, the arms race, Cold War politics and, most poignantly, the personal costs of the elder Pontecorvos choice.”
Library Journal
Close does an excellent job of describing the personal and professional lives of his subject, as well as the international intelligence communitys investigations of Pontecorvo before and after he defected to the Soviet Union. This fascinating and well-researched account will appeal to a wide range of readers, including those interested in World War II and the foundation of the Manhattan Project, the Cold War, particle physics, the process of scientific investigation, and the life of scientists.”
Publishers Weekly
[A]n intensively researched, engrossing biography that turns up some suspicious behavior and mildly incriminating documents.... Close serves Pontecorvo well in this outstanding biography, illuminating his work as well as the painful political conflicts of his time.”
Kirkus Reviews
[An] insightful biography.... Closes intense research turns up hints that [Pontecorvo] spied and, warned by other spies, fled to avoid arrest. A fine account, heavy on science and politics, of a long, productive, peripatetic and ultimately inexplicable life.”
Graham Farmelo, The Guardian (UK)
Frank Close brings a fresh perspective to the story.... [I]mpressively researched.”
Aberdeen Press and Journal (UK)
At times [Half-Life] feels more like a cold war spy novel as Pontecorvos life takes some extraordinary twists and turns, which will keep readers new and old glued until the end.”
Times Higher Education Supplement (UK)
[Half-Life] is a tale whose le Carré-esque cast of spies, double agents, couriers, intercepted messages and clandestine escapes cries out for dramatisation. Close tells it well, but eschews any novelistic invention of scenes whose details he cannot know.”
The Scotsman (Scotland)
[Close] shows flair for writing a biography that is both rivetingly fascinating for those of us who are interested in the history of science and highly readable for those who have a taste for mystery thrillers.... [An] excellent biography.”
John Gribbin, author of In Search of Schrödingers Cat
Frank Close's books get better and better. Half-Life is an enthralling insight into the life and times of one of the most mysterious characters of twentieth century science. Weaving together a fascinating personal life and the politics of the Cold War with his usual insightful exposition of physics, Close has produced a triumph of scientific biography. For once, truth really is stranger than fiction.”
Paul Halpern, author of Einsteins Dice and Schrödingers Cat
"Half-Life is a riveting Cold War mystery about a scientist whose life was as elusive as the particles he studied. Frank Close paints a fascinating portrait of the enigmatic man who helped bring the mysteries of neutrinos to the worlds attention, while slipping in and out of public view and presumed to be a spy for the Soviets. Impeccably researched, Half-Life masterfully illuminates its shadowy target, offering a lucid assessment of Bruno Pontecorvos vital scientific contributions."
David Kaiser, author of How the Hippies Saved Physics
More than most, physicist Bruno Pontecorvo's life was buffeted by the tidal forces of history, from fascism in Europe to the pall of nuclear secrecy at the dawn of the Cold War. For decades, Pontecorvo's life and work have seemed as enigmatic as the tiny neutrino particles at the center of his research. In Half-Life, Frank Close sheds fascinating new light on a complicated man and the legacy he left behind.”
About the Author
Frank Close is professor of physics at the University of Oxford. A longtime science writer, Close is a past recipient of the Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for his contributions to the public understanding of physics. He is the author of many books, including Neutrino, Nothing, The Void, and The Cosmic Onion, and has written or presented for Nature, the BBC, and other media outlets.
Table of Contents
PrefacePrologue: Midway on Lifes Journey
FIRST HALF
1. From Pisa to Rome
2. Slow Neutrons and Fast Reactions: 19341936
3. Paris and Politics: 19361940
4. The First Escape: 1940
5. Neutrons for Oil and War: 19401941
6. East and West: 19411942
7. The Pile at Chalk River: 19431945
8. Physics in the Open: 19451948
9. Maneuvers: 19451950
INTERLUDE
West to East
HALF TIME
10. Chain Reaction: 19491950
11. From Abingdonto Where? 1950
12. The Dear Departed: 1950
13. The M15 Letters
SECOND HALF
14. In Dark Woods
15. Exile
16. Resurrection
17. Mr. Neutrino
18. Private Bruno
AFTERLIFE
19. The Right Road Lost