Synopses & Reviews
Here for the first time, in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan.
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers -- Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and yon Neumann -- stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.
Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step by step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man's most awesome discovery and invention. The Making of the Atomic Bomb has been compared in its sweep and importance to William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.
Review
Tracy Kidder The comprehensive history of the Bomb -- and also a work of literature.
Review
Carl Sagan A stirring intellectual adventure...clear, fast-paced, and indispensable.
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San Francisco Chronicle A monumental and enthralling history...Alive and vibrant in the book are all the scientists...and each human being stands vividly revealed as a man of science, of conscience, of doubts or of hubris.
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Carl SaganA stirring intellectual adventure...clear, fast-paced, and indispensable.
Synopsis
With a new Introduction by the author, the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic about how the atomic bomb came to be.In rich, human, political, and scientific detail, here is the complete story of the nuclear bomb.
Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly—or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began merely as an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, and then into the Bomb with frightening rapidity, while scientists known only to their peers—Szilard, Teller, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Meitner, Fermi, Lawrence, and von Neumann—stepped from their ivory towers into the limelight.
Richard Rhodes takes us on that journey step-by-step, minute by minute, and gives us the definitive story of man’s most awesome discovery and invention. The Making of the Atomic Bomb is at once a narrative tour de force and a document as powerful as its subject.
About the Author
Richard Rhodes is the author of numerous books and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His articles have appeared in many national magazines. He graduated from Yale University and has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Table of Contents
Contents Part One: Profound and Necessary Truth
1. Moonshine
2. Atoms and Void
3. Tvi
4. The Long Grave Already Dug
5. Men from Mars
6. Machines
7. Exodus
8. Stirring and Digging
9. An Extensive Burst
Part Two: A Peculiar Sovereignty
10. Neutrons
11. Cross Sections
12. A Communication from Britain
13. The New World
14. Physics and Desert Country
15. Different Animals
16. Revelations
17. The Evils of This Time
Part Three: Life and Death
18. Trinity
19. Tongues of Fire
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index