Download or read book Restricted Data written by Alex Wellerstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full history of US nuclear secrecy, from its origins in the late 1930s to our post–Cold War present. The American atomic bomb was born in secrecy. From the moment scientists first conceived of its possibility to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and beyond, there were efforts to control the spread of nuclear information and the newly discovered scientific facts that made such powerful weapons possible. The totalizing scientific secrecy that the atomic bomb appeared to demand was new, unusual, and very nearly unprecedented. It was foreign to American science and American democracy—and potentially incompatible with both. From the beginning, this secrecy was controversial, and it was always contested. The atomic bomb was not merely the application of science to war, but the result of decades of investment in scientific education, infrastructure, and global collaboration. If secrecy became the norm, how would science survive? Drawing on troves of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time through the author’s efforts, Restricted Data traces the complex evolution of the US nuclear secrecy regime from the first whisper of the atomic bomb through the mounting tensions of the Cold War and into the early twenty-first century. A compelling history of powerful ideas at war, it tells a story that feels distinctly American: rich, sprawling, and built on the conflict between high-minded idealism and ugly, fearful power.

Download or read book The Atomic West written by Bruce W. Hevly and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Manhattan Project—the World War II race to produce an atomic bomb—transformed the entire country in myriad ways, but it did not affect each region equally. Acting on an enduring perception of the American West as an “empty” place, the U.S. government located a disproportionate number of nuclear facilities—particularly the ones most likely to spread pollution—in western states. The Manhattan Project manufactured plutonium at Hanford, Washington; designed and assembled bombs at Los Alamos, New Mexico; and detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico, on June 16, 1945. In the years that followed the war, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission selected additional western sites for its work. Many westerners initially welcomed the atom. Like federal officials, they, too, regarded their region as “empty,” or underdeveloped. Facilities to make, test, and base atomic weapons, sites to store nuclear waste, and even nuclear power plants were regarded as assets. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, regional attitudes began to change. At a variety of locales, ranging from Eskimo Alaska to Mormon Utah, westerners devoted themselves to resisting the atom and its effects on their environments and communities. Just as the atomic age had dawned in the American West, so its artificial sun began to set there. The Atomic West brings together contributions from several disciplines to explore the impact on the West of the development of atomic power from wartime secrecy and initial postwar enthusiasm to public doubts and protest in the 1970s and 1980s. An impressive example of the benefits of interdisciplinary studies on complex topics, The Atomic West advances our understanding of both regional history and the history of science, and does so with human communities as a significant focal point. The book will be of special interest to students and experts on the American West, environmental history, and the history of science and technology.

Download or read book Manhattan written by Vincent C. Jones and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Atomic Histories written by Rudolf Ernst Peierls and published by Singular. This book was released on 1997 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "His experience and insight, combined with a great honesty and clarity of vision, placed him among the most authoritative commentators in his field." Brian Cathcart, Deputy Editor, The Independent and author of Test of Greatness: Britain's Struggle for the Atom Bomb Highly respected physicist Rudolf Peierls offers an enlightening collection of essays, book reviews, and candid profiles of some of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. Many of the essays are concerned with the nuclear arms race, which Dr. Peierls has consistently opposed. The book reviews are most revealing and reflect Peierls's position on the Strategic Defense Initiative and his views on energy policy. Peierls also writes about mentor Wolfgang Pauli, the controversial figure of Werner Heisenberg, J. Robert Oppenheimer as a troubled young man, and personal friends Herbert Skinner, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, and others. About the Author In 1940, Rudolph Peierls, together with Otto Frisch, put forth the theory that if U-235 could be separated from U-238, an 11 pound bomb could be produced with the equivalent power of several tons of dynamite. Educated in Germany, Dr. Peierls went to Zurich in 1929 to assist the pioneering physicist Wolfgang Pauli. In 1932 he became a Rockefeller Fellow and went to England as a researcher. He remained in England after Hitler came to power and following World War II he taught at the University of Birmingham and later at Oxford.

Download or read book Atomic Accidents written by Jim Mahaffey and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “delightfully astute” and “entertaining” history of the mishaps and meltdowns that have marked the path of scientific progress (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Radiation: What could go wrong? In short, plenty. From Marie Curie carrying around a vial of radium salt because she liked the pretty blue glow to the large-scale disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, dating back to the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. In this lively book, long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy James Mahaffey looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Every incident, while taking its toll, has led to new understanding of the mighty atom—and the fascinating frontier of science that still holds both incredible risk and great promise.

Download or read book Atomic Diplomacy written by Gar Alperovitz and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Life Atomic written by Angela N. H. Creager and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began mass-producing radioisotopes, sending out nearly 64,000 shipments of radioactive materials to scientists and physicians by 1955. Even as the atomic bomb became the focus of Cold War anxiety, radioisotopes represented the government’s efforts to harness the power of the atom for peace—advancing medicine, domestic energy, and foreign relations. In Life Atomic, Angela N. H. Creager tells the story of how these radioisotopes, which were simultaneously scientific tools and political icons, transformed biomedicine and ecology. Government-produced radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools for diagnosis and therapy, specifically cancer therapy, and enabled biologists to trace molecular transformations. Yet the government’s attempt to present radioisotopes as marvelous dividends of the atomic age was undercut in the 1950s by the fallout debates, as scientists and citizens recognized the hazards of low-level radiation. Creager reveals that growing consciousness of the danger of radioactivity did not reduce the demand for radioisotopes at hospitals and laboratories, but it did change their popular representation from a therapeutic agent to an environmental poison. She then demonstrates how, by the late twentieth century, public fear of radioactivity overshadowed any appreciation of the positive consequences of the AEC’s provision of radioisotopes for research and medicine.

Download or read book The Atomic Scientists written by Henry A. Boorse and published by . This book was released on 1989-05-31 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the atom through detailed biographies of its famous and lesser-known proponets.

Download or read book Inspectors for Peace written by Elisabeth Roehrlich and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Based on unique access to the IAEA Archives in Vienna and numerous interviews with leading diplomats and scientists, this book provides the first comprehensive, empirically grounded, and independent study on the history of the International Atomic Energy Agency"--

Download or read book Trinity A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb written by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2023-11-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trinity, the debut graphic book by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm, depicts the dramatic history of the race to build and the decision to drop the first atomic bomb in World War Two—with a focus on the brilliant, enigmatic scientist, J. Robert Oppenheimer. "Succeeds as both a graphic primer and a philosophical meditation." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) This sweeping historical narrative traces the spark of invention from the laboratories of nineteenth-century Europe to the massive industrial and scientific efforts of the Manhattan Project, and even transports the reader into a nuclear reaction—into the splitting atoms themselves. The power of the atom was harnessed in a top-secret government compound in Los Alamos, New Mexico, by a group of brilliant scientists led by the enigmatic wunderkind J. Robert Oppenheimer. Focused from the start on the monumentally difficult task of building an atomic weapon, these men and women soon began to wrestle with the moral implications of actually succeeding. When they detonated the first bomb at a test site code-named Trinity, they recognized that they had irreversibly thrust the world into a new and terrifying age. With powerful renderings of WWII's catastrophic events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Fetter-Vorm unflinchingly chronicles the far-reaching political, environmental, and psychological effects of this new invention. Informative and thought-provoking, Trinity is the ideal introduction to one of the most significant events in history.

Download or read book Atomic Culture written by Scott C. Zeman and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eight scholars examine the range of cultural expressions of atomic energy from the 1940s to the early twenty-first century, including comic books, nuclear landscapes, mushroom-cloud postcards, the Los Alamos suburbs, uranium-themed board games, future atomic waste facilities, and atomic-themed films such as 'Dr. Strangelove' and 'The Atomic Kid'. Despite the growing interest in atomic culture and history, the body of relevant scholarship is relatively sparse. Atomic Culture opens new doors into the field by providing a substantive, engaging, and historically based consideration of the topic that will appeal to students and scholars of the Atomic Age as well as general readers.

Download or read book The Atomic Archipelago written by Davide Orsini and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups—including local residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians—to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly present and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and in contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, where unique social power dynamics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies.

Download or read book The American Atom written by Philip L. Cantelon and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For this edition (first in 1984), the editors have updated the collection of primary documents which tell the story of atomic energy in the US from the discovery of fission through the development of nuclear weapons, international proliferation, and attempts at control. The book also includes a new chapter, reflects on Chernoyl, Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Manhattan Project written by Cynthia C. Kelly and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the first atomic bomb, discover new reflections on the Manhattan Project from President Barack Obama, hibakusha (survivors), and the modern-day mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The creation of the atomic bomb during World War II, codenamed the Manhattan Project, was one of the most significant and clandestine scientific undertakings of the 20th century. It forever changed the nature of war and cast a shadow over civilization. Born out of a small research program that began in 1939, the Manhattan Project would eventually employ nearly 600,000 people and cost about $2 billon ($28.5 billion in 2020) -- all while operating under a shroud of complete secrecy. On the 75th anniversary of this profoundly crucial moment in history, this newest edition of The Manhattan Project is updated with writings and reflections from the past decade and a half. This groundbreaking collection of essays, articles, documents, and excerpts from histories, biographies, plays, novels, letters, and oral histories remains the most comprehensive collection of primary source material of the atomic bomb.

Download or read book The History and Science of the Manhattan Project written by Bruce Cameron Reed and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-02-19 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of atomic bombs under the auspices of the U.S. Army’s Manhattan Project during World War II is considered to be the outstanding news story of the twentieth century. In this book, a physicist and expert on the history of the Project presents a comprehensive overview of this momentous achievement. The first three chapters cover the history of nuclear physics from the discovery of radioactivity to the discovery of fission, and would be ideal for instructors of a sophomore-level “Modern Physics” course. Student-level exercises at the ends of the chapters are accompanied by answers. Chapter 7 covers the physics of first-generation fission weapons at a similar level, again accompanied by exercises and answers. For the interested layman and for non-science students and instructors, the book includes extensive qualitative material on the history, organization, implementation, and results of the Manhattan Project and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. The reader also learns about the legacy of the Project as reflected in the current world stockpiles of nuclear weapons. This second edition contains important revisions and additions, including a new chapter on the German atomic bomb program and new sections on British and Canadian contributions to the Manhattan project and on feed materials. Several other sections have been expanded; reader feedback has been helpful in introducing minor corrections and improved explanations; and, last but not least, the second edition includes a detailed index.

Download or read book The Girls of Atomic City written by Denise Kiernan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the contributions of the thousands of women who worked at a secret uranium-enriching facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during World War II.

Download or read book A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission written by Richard G. Hewlett and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page 774 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: