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The People. Rhodes introduces about 500 characters, but follows in essential detail the 50-70 scientists and military brass and politicians whose names are forever linked to the history of the atomic bomb. The construction of the A-bomb is as much the ultimate conflagration of personal fear and desire of Jewish and expat German scientists, as it is a story about physics. This overlay of humanity perfectly balances what would otherwise be a tough scientific read. Moreover, Wigner’s remark – “we are all doomed” – is thematically appropriate, because this is not simply a book about a scientific achievement, but about the terrible consequences of those achievements.
Robert Oppenheimer oversaw all this activity with self-evident competence and an outward composure that almost everyone came to depend on. 'Oppenheimer was probably the best lab director I have ever seen,' Teller repeats, 'because of the great mobility of his mind, because of his successful effort to know about practically everything important invented in the laboratory, and also because of his unusual psychological insight into other people which, in the company of physicists, was very much the exception.'" MM: Freeman’s book examines the emergence of the Atomic Age, with its odd mixture of futuristic fantasy and existential angst. It extends the narrative of wartime Oak Ridge into the Cold War and beyond, revealing some of the curious ambiguities that characterize contemporary scientific and political culture. Biographies of many important people and their accomplishments were discussed at great length: Ernest Rutherford (early atomic model), Marie Curie (radioactivity), Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg (quantum mechanics and electrons), Enrico Fermi (neutron bombardment, nuclear chain reactions, and atomic fission), J. Robert Oppenheimer (the theoretical physicist who put it all together at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico and the Manhattan Project), and many others who all contributed to the field of nuclear energy, theoretical physics, and quantum theory. Even the psychological profiles of these individuals was discussed: Finally, we have our first fiction book that takes the reality of the Manhattan Project to a whole other level. Some of the characters may be fictional, the story may be made up and customized to some extent, but the basis of the entire tale is very true and real. Everything you’re about to discover, everyone you’re about to meet, are all related to the very real historical event known as the Manhattan Project. Searching for the Truth
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MM: In 1995, the National Building Museum presented an exhibition revealing the impact of wartime building innovations on postwar American life. This catalogue includes passages touching on the cities built for the Manhattan Project. Categories Before writing The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes already authored several fiction books, and worked as an independent journalist. He liked science writing, though his only training, in his own words, was "a course at Yale that we called Physics for Poets". When he started to work on the book he found out that "the early papers in nuclear physics were written very clearly". [1] Reception [ edit ] Rhodes with the book. It is compelling and terrifying to see what happened to Japan's people and then think of what could have happened to the world if the Nazis had built an atomic bomb first. Hitler’s 1933 expulsion of Jewish scientists from Germany’s universities and Mussolini’s anti-Semitic policies led to key talented nuclear physicists coming to the U. S. Driven by their personal experience and overwhelming fear of Hitler’s getting the bomb first, these scientists convinced the American government to take the bomb seriously. When their expertise was combined with existing U.S. scientific talent, a “critical mass” of ideas rebounded through this emergent physics community resulting in the atomic bomb. Germany’s remaining scientists, while talented, were too few, too isolated and had too few resources. Other nations had even less capability. On July 26, 1945, at the Potsdam Conference in the Allied-occupied city of Potsdam, Germany, the U.S. delivered an ultimatum to Japan—surrender under the terms outlined in the Potsdam Declaration (which, among other provisions, called for the Japanese to form a new, democratic and peaceful government) or face “prompt and utter destruction.”
Finally in 1942, “[Enrico] Fermi…brought to fruition all the years of discovery and experiment. Men had controlled the release of energy from the atomic nucleus. At first, it was called the Manhattan Engineer District, but it was layered shortened to the name we all know now. We will leave the rest up to the 10 books about the Manhattan Projects that will teach you all you need to know. I'll summarize the book to give an idea of what it's about and highlight some parts I found interesting. This city, which didn’t exist before 1942, ended up with over 75,000 people living there by the end of the war. These included women who were scientists, doctors, administrators, and construction workers who operated behind the scenes to make the atomic bomb a reality. However, many didn't know what they were working on as the government didn't tell them. Most didn't even realize they were doing this to help build an atomic bomb until "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima.As a last curious historical note, World War 2 came at exactly the time when the very last conventional war could be fought. Given the advances in nuclear physics, starting a conflict a few years after 1939 would have been impossible due to the danger of all-out nuclear war in which everyone loses. I had also often thought about what would have happened if Germany did not execute Operation Barbarossa and open the Eastern front with the Soviet Union, which could have bought it extra time and resources to cause more havoc elsewhere in Europe/North Africa. This book provides the answer - the US nuclear weapon program was so far ahead of the German program that even if the war dragged on longer, Germany would have been reduced to irradiated ash. Between the Thursday of Roosevelt's death and the Sunday of the memorial service on the Hill, Otto Frisch delivered to Robert Oppenheimer his report on the first experimental determination of the critical mass of pure U235…. Within twenty-four hours of Franklin Roosevelt's death two men told Harry Truman about the atomic bomb.” This collection goes from the straightforward style to some of the more comprehensive writings on physics to get a good range of opinions and thoughts. You will find information such as Einstein's letter to President Roosevelt about the possibility of how these weapons of mass destruction could destroy the world. The information on the soviet spies who infiltrated the project and were able to have their atomic bomb soon after the war. In 1993, Rhodes published Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense about Energy detailing the history of the nuclear power industry in the United States, and future promises of nuclear power. In 1995 he published a sequel to The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which told the story of the atomic espionage during World War II, the debates over whether the hydrogen bomb ought to be produced, and the eventual creation of the bomb and its consequences for the arms race. In 2007, Rhodes published Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, a chronicle of the arms buildups during the Cold War, especially focusing on Mikhail Gorbachev and the Reagan administration. The Twilight of the Bombs, the fourth and final volume in his series on nuclear history, was published in 2010. The book documents, among other topics, the post-Cold War nuclear history of the world, nuclear proliferation, and nuclear terrorism. The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a history book written by the American journalist and historian Richard Rhodes, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1987. The book won multiple awards, including Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The narrative covers people and events from early 20th century discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
by Peter Watson The justification for the atomic bomb was simple: it would defeat Hitler and end the Second World War faster, saving lives. The reality was different. The main character in this thrilling book is an 11-year-old girl named Dewey Kerrigan. She decides to go searching for her father, a brilliant scientist who is working on a top-secret and extremely dangerous project. Dewey gets on a train and heads for Los Alamos, New Mexico. The hunt for her father will not be an easy one, and it will take some time for her to find him and discover the truth. Elizabeth Rona, the foremost expert in plutonium, who gave rise to the “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the bombs dropped over Japan Sally Smith Hughes notes that while "Rhodes is neither a scientist nor science writer", this "may explain the freshness of his approach and his ability to convey difficult science in layman's terms." She notes the usage of oral histories by the author: Rhodes writes about 21 participants of the events who "generously made time for interviews and correspondence"; he also used oral histories collected by the American Institute of Physics. [7]
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You might be surprised to see a graphic novel on this list, but this must-read for anyone interested in this historical event. It is unlike any other book on this list as it shows, through words and illustrations, everything related to the atomic bomb. This includes the origins of the theory for it, the early work, and the Trinity Test. It then continues with the bombs being dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the early Cold War that resulted from developing these weapons of mass destruction. Oppenheimer was also a gift to future historians: a man acutely aware of his place in time, his position at the juncture of events; a man who understood what the scientists had done before anyone else. He was also, because of his classical education, always ready with a printable line. When the Trinity test took place at Alamogordo, it was Oppenheimer who famously quoted the ancient Hindu text of the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Collins, Angelo (1988). "Reviewed Work: The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes". The American Biology Teacher. 50 (8): 532. doi: 10.2307/4448825. JSTOR 4448825. a b c Broad, William J. (February 8, 1987). "The Men Who Made the Sun Rise". 7. The New York Times (Late City Finaled.). New York. p.1. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved August 6, 2012. In 1940, a British Government report hinted at a what would later be known as "nuclear deterrence" – an international restraint based on the threat of mutual annihilation. "It must be realised that no shelter are available that would be effective and could be used on a larger scale," noted the report in weighing responses to a Nazi bomb. "The most effective reply would be a counter-threat with a similar weapon." As Rhodes reveals, however, the United States, prodded at every step by its British allies, strove relentlessly for nuclear superiority even when Germany's defeat seemed inevitable. The ghost had indeed escaped from the bottle and there was no way to recapture him anymore. Now, it wasn't about restraining the Nazi – it was about the intoxication caused by ultimate power, about the possession of a formidable new weapon of destruction.
Angelo Collins of Stanford University also praised the book, noting that it "is not a pleasure to read (it is thought provoking and makes the reader uneasy) and it is not easy to read (it is long and there are many characters and many settings). But it is fascinating." [9] Carol S. Gruber writes that the "comprehensiveness and the framework within which its main story unfolds, it broadens and deepens our understanding of the familiar subject; and it is a very good read." [10] One of the most significant characters in this nonfiction book is Dorothy, the person who will be showing us around Los Alamos and introducing us to many of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project. Dorothy is the one who ran this project’s office in Santa Fe and is a person who can give us a lot of valuable insights. The People of Santa Fe This is the story of the women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. You’re going to read about how they were a very important part of the operation and what it all means as you discover more about their lives. But first, Oak Ridge was a town that didn’t appear on any map until 1949. Its creation was a result of the Manhattan Project. Oak Ridge was created in 1942 as a secret city that would serve valuable to the operation involving the creation of an atomic bomb. The Secrets of Oak Ridge
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In my mind's eye, like a waking dream, I could still see the tongues of fire at work on the bodies of men.” Badash, Lawrence (July 1987). "The men behind the bomb". Nature. 328 (6128): 301–302. doi: 10.1038/328301a0. ISSN 0028-0836. Bunn, Matthew (May 1988). "The Bomb's Brilliant History". Arms Control Today. 18 (4): 29–30. JSTOR 23623906. The period of discovery from Rutherford discovering the atomic nucleus to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could certainly be put forward as the greatest scientific period in human history. The community and fraternity of scientists across the globe preceding the Great Wars is also heartening and certainly a golden era I imagine all scientists wish we could return to. It is a noble and a sad and a horrific and a beautiful book all at once and it deserved all of the awards (Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award) it won.
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