The Making of the Atomic Bomb
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb description
If the first 270 pages of this book had been published separately, they would have made up a lively, insightful, beautifully written history of theoretical physics and the men and women who plumbed the mysteries of the atom. Along with the following 600 pages, they become a sweeping epic, filled with terror and pity, of the ultimate scientific quest: the development of the ultimate weapon. Rhodes is a peerless explainer of difficult concepts; he is even better at chronicling the personalities who made the discoveries that led to the Bomb. Niels Bohr dominates the first half of the book as J. Robert Oppenheimer does the second; both men were gifted philosophers of science as well as brilliant physicists. The central irony of this book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, is that the greatest minds of the century contributed to the greatest destructive force in history. |
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb Customer Reviews
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The story of the atomic bomb from its theoretical origins to the Arms Race.
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This book is impressive in more ways than its obvious thickness (886 pages). Exhaustively researched and well documented, its narrative is more characteristic of a novel than a scientific history. Notables such as historian Lawrence Badash and physicist Sir Solly Zuckerman praise the work for both its technical accuracy and readability, itself not an insignificant accomplishment and Rhodes was recognized by a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I traces the evolution of nuclear physics by scientists in Europe and describes the cultural climate in which they worked. Part II explains how and why research shifted to the United States and the Manhattan Project. Part III discusses the Trinity test, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the postwar development of the hydrogen bomb. A pervasive theme developed throughout the pages and discussed in an extensive epilogue, is the moral question of the bomb's destructive power.
The evolution of nuclear physics was the initiative of European physicists in Copenhagen, Guttenberg, and Cambridge. Marie Curie discovered radiation in 1898. Ernest Rutherford (considered the father of nuclear physics) in 1910 theorized the energy of the atom was in the nucleus. Neils Bohr explained the structure of the atom in 1922. Otto Hahn split the atom in 1938. The path of discovery wends its way through the politics of the first half of the twentieth century and the appearance of the "total-war machine"(779) when. in WWI, the mass annihilation of armies became possible by gas and the machine gun. As WWII neared, the basic science of the nuclear bomb was understood.
When scientists warned FDR of the danger of the enemy acquiring the atom bomb, the United States embarked on the Manhattan Project, the largest industrial and engineering project ever undertaken in the history of mankind. Meanwhile, on the war front, aerial bombing of cities caused massive civilians casualties. The "total-war machine" now included noncombatants. To force the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Government and avoid the costly toll of lives from invading Japan, Truman authorized the use of the atomic bombs. Two designs were used: Little Boy, a uranium gun design, was dropped on Hiroshima and Fat Man, an implosion bomb, was dropped on Nagasaki. America's nuclear monopoly was short lived. In 1949 the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb, Joe I.
The implications of nuclear weapons as a "total-death machine" (779) are discussed in an extensive epilogue extolling the virtue of Neils Bohr and his idea of an "open world." If nuclear power was available to everyone, Bohr argues, no one would have a monopoly. Consequently there would be no need for an arms race. Others, such as Oppeheimer called for a World Government organization to oversee nuclear power.
While scientists recognized the implications of their destructive work, there was no moral consensus to force the issue during WWII. A collective morality was finally articulated well after the conclusion of the war when scientists argued that the hydrogen bomb was a weapon of genocide.
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