The Making of the Atomic Bomb review

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (Author). With a brand new Introduction by the author, the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-successful epic about how the atomic bomb came to be.

In rich, human, political, and scientific detail, right here is the whole story of the nuclear bomb.

Few nice discoveries have evolved so swiftly--or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear power to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly greater than twenty-five years. What began merely as an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan Project, after which into the Bomb with scary rapidity, whereas scientists known only to their friends--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 provides us the definitive story of man's most superior discovery and invention. "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is at once a narrative tour the pressure and a document as powerful as its subject.

--This textual content refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Everyone seeking to grasp the 20th century, its history, its politics, its scientific improvement, should read this book. Not only does it illuminate one of many foundational occasions of our time far better than another supply, it definitively sets forth trendy science, its moral dilemmas, its odd mixture of unbelievable explanatory energy and the completely (humanly) unfathomable reality science suggests. Rhodes traces the event of the atomic bomb to its scientific roots, which he demonstrates are inextricably intertwined with the folks pushing the scientific developments at an ever rising speed and for a very long time had no thought of the potential their theories carried. Rhodes manages to do all this with complete lucidity, permitting the reader totally unfamiliar with quantum mechanics to comply with together with affordable comprehension. On the similar time, the psychological, ethical and political dramas Rhodes describes make this the hands-down most thrilling, most fun ebook I've ever learn.

This is a good guide that I really feel totally different people will get different things from. I am no quantum theorist nonetheless so I ought to have flipped by these parts greater than I did and concentrated on the politics and the war elements which were excellent. The quantum theorem stuff gave me a headache however should you can dangle in there I am positive it will add to your appreciation of the book. I felt a little bit impatient all the way through as I needed to examine Trinity and Hiroshima and the politics behind them. And it was fascinating to read about the hopes and fears of the very human but good scientists. I liked the way the ebook linked the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki all the way back to before the primary world battle, the lack of unconditional surrender in 1918 and so the will for it in 1945, many Jews fleeing from Germany within the thirties including their prime scientists, the concern of Hitler getting the bomb first etc. It just all appears inevitable with the gift of hindsight however this e-book exhibits the uncertainty and fears of the times and long candlelit nights. I feel anyone whose contemptuously in the direction of the people involved within the arrival of nuclear weapons should learn this e book and not less than speak from data fairly than emotion. 

The Making of the Atomic Bomb 

 Richard Rhodes (Author)

928 pages

Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (February 1987)

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