Download or read book Atomic Quest A Personal Narrative written by Arthur Holly Compton and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-08-09 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As director of the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago, Arthur Holly Compton was a major participant in the research, production and testing of the first atomic bombs. In this memoir, he tells the story of the bomb’s development from the presentation of the project to President Roosevelt, through its planning, research, and building phases, to its use against Japan. From the perspective of the key position he held during World War II, Compton describes the project as a large-scale group effort leveraging the knowledge and talents of numerous scientists, industrialists and administrators all working as part of their nation’s war effort. “An absorbing and eminently readable account... packed with new information, enlivened with precious detail and illuminating insights into the minds and personalities of the chief actors in the drama... Mr. Compton tells, and tells well, the story of how, with his unflagging encouragement, the brilliant team under the late Enrico Fermi brought about the first nuclear chain reaction... [an] important book.” — Henry Guerlac, The New York Times Book Review “This book... is without doubt the most authoritative source available on many aspects of the atomic bomb project... Better than in most histories the real factors underlying one of mankind’s most important developments are set forth in this work... The story is a personal one, which... gives the book a Churchillian authenticity... No historian will ever dare to neglect this volume in writing the history of World War II. It is beautifully written, carefully documented, and thoroughly interesting from cover to cover.” — W.F. Libby, Science “For those who were in the project, it will mean many recollections. For those who were not, it should give an inkling of the character and capacity of many of the individuals, including Arthur Compton, who made success possible.” — Lieutenant General Leslie R. Groves, U.S. Army (Retired) “Atomic Quest is an absorbingly interesting story of the people who blazed the trail into the atomic frontier... In a lifetime filled with brilliant accomplishments, Arthur Compton’s four-year leadership in the quest for the atomic bomb was his grandest achievement... It is fortunate indeed that he returned to the fold long enough to set down in Atomic Quest a story that only he could tell.” — Richard L. Doan, American Journal of Physics “Dr. Compton is a thinking man whose reflections range far beyond the confines of his scientific work: indeed, the distinctive quality of his book lies in his ability to reconcile the atomic bomb and similar operations with his belief as a practicing Christian.” — John Barkham, Saturday Review Syndicate “It should be required reading for every American, for the free world... The narrative alone makes the book worth reading; its hopeful philosophy makes it mandatory reading.” — Robert S. Kleckner, Chicago Sunday Tribune “As... director of the Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project, Dr. Compton has an important record to add to the annals of the beginning of the Atomic Age, for his was a personal and intimate connection with it.” — Kirkus “A leading physicist’s personal account of the wartime developments in atomic energy, culminating in the production of the atomic bomb.” — Henry L. Roberts, Foreign Affairs “Informal, anecdotal, packed with behind-the-scenes incidents and impressions... arrestingly interesting.” — George W. Gray, The Saturday Review “The most controversial part of the book is that which endeavors to foresee the future of a world faced with the threat of war with nuclear weapons and the inevitable widespread destruction that will accompany their use. Compton is convinced that war has actually thereby become obsolescent.” — Robert Bruce Lindsay, Physics Today “This book... is written for the layman, in clear, everyday English... it answers the questions that have arisen in the minds of all intelligent people concerning the physical, moral, social and religious implications of the Atomic Age which was so brutally and vividly thrust upon the world in 1945.” — Paul Jordan-Smith, Los Angeles Times

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 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 Illustrious Immigrants The Intellectual Migration from Europe 1930 41 written by Laura Fermi and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2021-10-09 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Migration from Europe has occurred without interruption since the time America was discovered. There have always been some intellectuals, educated abroad, whose presence and work enriched our culture. Laura Fermi, however, analyzes a new and unique phenomenon in the history of immigration, the wave of intellectuals from continental Europe that from 1930 to 1941 brought to these shores well over 20,000 professional refugees. Most immigrant intellectuals were pushed out of the European continent by the dictatorships of that period; they were ‘the men and women who came to America fully made, with their Ph.D.’s or diplomas from art academies or music conservatories in their pocket, and who continue to engage in intellectual pursuits in this country.’ Among them we find Franz Alexander, Bruno Bettelheim, Enrico Fermi, Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Igor Stravinsky, John von Neumann, Paul Tillich and a long sequence of Nobel Prize winners and exceptional scholars. Their contribution to American life continues to the present. Working with a sample of about 1,900 names and relying on personal contacts, interviews, memoirs, newspaper accounts, obituaries, and similar sources, Mrs. Fermi succeeds in conveying the significance of the intellectual immigration and the areas of its impact on America. She describes the personal trials and the successes of these persons caught up in the web of persecution and peregrinations leading to higher institutions of learning in the United States... the delightful style of the book, the new light it throws on the period studied from a participant observer’s position, and the insight it brings forth concerning the mutual enrichment of American and European intellectual communities make it enjoyable and instructive reading.” — Silvano M. Tomasi, The International Migration Review “Illustrious Immigrants is an honest and informative book; it is well-organized, well-informed, well-balanced... crammed with information, with illuminating anecdotes, often moving incidents and revealing statistics.” — Peter Gay, The New York Times “[R]ich in personal anecdote and communication which make delightful reading... in so many ways a splendid and useful book, tackling with imagination, industry, and a rare combination of personal concern and emotional detachment a subject that would frighten — indeed thus far has frightened — professional social historians by its magnitude and complexity.” — Alice Kimball Smith, Science “[Laura Fermi has] made an effort to bring together materials that exist nowhere else and to juxtapose them so as to reveal patterns that would otherwise be invisible. For this, we should be grateful... Mrs Fermi’s work is earnest and responsible.” — Harriet Zuckerman, Physics Today “[Laura Fermi is] an immensely knowledgeable, discerning, and unpretentious guide to the influx [of the intellectual migration from Fascist Europe], as well as a personal example of its lustrous quality... this engaging book... will prove to be indispensable to all students of transatlantic interactions.” — Cushing Strout, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “This is an optimistic book, a contribution to a singular chapter in the history of American science and learning.” — Philip Morrison, Scientific American

Download or read book The Autonomy of History written by Joseph M. Levine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-12-15 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He offers a number of case histories to show that by the end of the eighteenth century, recourse to "matter of fact" became pervasive, and the new claims for history were met by skepticism in a debate that still echoes today."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book United States Army in World War 2 Special Studies Manhattan the Army and the Atomic Bomb Clothbound written by and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2014-07-29 with total page 684 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: he U.S. Army played a key role in the formation and administration of the Manhattan Project, the World War II organization which produced the atomic bombs that not only contributed decisively to ending the war with Japan but also opened the way to a new atomic age. The volume begins with a prologue, designed to provide the reader with a brief survey of the history of atomic energy and to explain in layman’s terms certain technical aspects of atomic science essential to an understanding of the major problems occurring in the development of an atomic weapon. Early chapters describe the beginning of the Army’s atomic mission, including the formation of the Manhattan District, the first steps in acquiring the means to produce atomic weapons and the appointment of General Groves. Subsequent topical chapters trace the building and operation of the large-scale process plants for the production of fissionable materials; the administration of a broad range of support activities, such as security and community management; and the fabrication, testing, and combat employment of atomic bombs. A concluding section describes how the Army dealt with the difficult problems arising during its unexpectedly prolonged postwar trusteeship of the project until December 1946, when the newly created civilian agency – the United States Atomic Energy Commission – assumed responsibility for atomic energy matters.

Download or read book Japan s Secret War written by Robert K. Wilcox and published by Permuted Press+ORM. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking investigation reveals how a secret atomic weapons program in WWII Japan led to today’s North Korean security crisis. Japan’s Secret War explores one of the least-known, yet highly significant episodes of World War II: Japan’s frantic race to develop its own atomic bomb. Journalist and historian Robert Wilcox then shows how Japan’s efforts evolved into North Korea’s nuclear program and the looming threat it presents to mankind. After decades of research into national intelligence archives in the US and abroad, Wilcox presents a detailed account of Japan’s version of the Manhattan Project. He traces its development from inception to the possible detonation of a nuclear device in 1945. Wilcox weaves a fascinating portrait of the secret industrial complex where Japan’s atomic research culminated. And it is there that North Korea, following the Japanese defeat, salvaged what remained and fashioned its own nuclear program. “Japan’s Secret War is still spellbinding. It is intriguing and disturbing, and Robert Wilcoxdeserves high praise for his meticulous research.” —Historynet.com

Download or read book THE PHYSICISTS written by Daniel J. Kevles and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2013-06-05 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This magnificent account of the coming of age of physics in America has been heralded as the best introduction to the history of science in the United States. Unsurpassed in its breadth and literary style, Kevles's account portrays the brilliant scientists who became a powerful force in bringing the world into a revolutionary new era. The book ranges widely as it links these exciting developments to the social, cultural, and political changes that occurred from the post-Civil War years to the present. Throughout, Kevles keeps his eye on the central question of how an avowedly elitist enterprise grew and prospered in a democratic culture. In this new edition, the author has brought the story up to date by providing an extensive, authoritative, and colorful account of the Superconducting Super Collider, from its origins in the international competition and intellectual needs of high-energy particle physics, through its establishment as a multibillion-dollar project, to its termination, in 1993, as a result of angry opposition within the American physics community and the Congress.

Download or read book American Genesis written by Thomas P. Hughes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book that helped earn Thomas P. Hughes his reputation as one of the foremost historians of technology of our age and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, American Genesis tells the sweeping story of America's technological revolution. Unlike other histories of technology, which focus on particular inventions like the light bulb or the automobile, American Genesis makes these inventions characters in a broad chronicle, both shaped by and shaping a culture. By weaving scientific and technological advancement into other cultural trends, Hughes demonstrates here the myriad ways in which the two are inexorably linked, and in a new preface, he recounts his earlier missteps in predicting the future of technology and follows its move into the information age.

Download or read book The Accidental President written by Albert J. Baime and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2017 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the atomic, earthshaking first 120 days of Harry Truman's unlikely presidency, an unprepared, small-town man had to take on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and a secret weapon of unimaginable power--marking the most dramatic rise to greatness in American history.

Download or read book Robert M Hutchins written by Mary Ann Dzuback and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-11 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As president of the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1951, Robert Maynard Hutchins came to be one of the most prominent and controversial figures in American higher education. To this day, his vision of what the university should be has given shape to twentieth-century debates over the content and function of education in the United States. In her critical biography, the first to focus on Hutchins' University of Chicago decades, Mary Ann Dzuback gives a full and fascinating account of this complex man—his development, his achievements and failures, and finally, his legacy.

Download or read book The Neutron s Children written by Sean F. Johnston and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first nuclear engineers emerged from the Manhattan Project in the USA, UK and Canada, but remained hidden behind security for a further decade. Cosseted and cloistered by their governments, they worked to explore applications of atomic energy at a handful of national labs. This unique bottom-up history traces how the identities of these unusually voiceless experts - forming a uniquely state-managed discipline - were shaped in the context of pre-war nuclear physics, wartime industrial management, post-war politics and utopian energy programmes. Even after their eventual emergence at universities and companies, nuclear workers carried the enduring legacy of their origins. Their shared experiences shaped not only their identities, but our collective memories of the late twentieth century. And as illustrated by the Fukushima accident seven decades after the Manhattan project began, this book explains why they are still seen conflictingly as selfless heroes or as mistrusted guardians of a malevolent genie.

Download or read book Pearl to V J Day written by Jacob Neufeld and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In observance of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Air Force History and Museums Program sponsored a symposium on the War in the Pacific held at the Bethesda, MD, Naval Officers' Club. The gathering offered a unique opportunity for its guest panelists -- participants in that war or historians of it -- to reflect on a variety of subjects: Japanese objectives; American military preparedness and grand strategy; the interaction between U.S. Army, Air, and Navy leaders; combined operations; political and diplomatic intrigue; the challenges of ground, air, and sea warfare within differing Pacific theaters; military science and technology; the essential role of intelligence; the proposed Allied invasion of the Japanese home islands; and the use of the atomic bombs. For the United States, World War II began and ended in the Pacific, from Japan's aerial attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941, to its surrender in Tokyo Bay, on September 2, 1945. For all but 5 months of those years, Americans and their Allies were compelled to hold the line in Asia, doggedly opposing imperialist Japan while a "Europe First" policy against Nazi Germany and fascist Italy prevailed in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. The United States operated over huge distances, from China, Burma, and India, to countless Pacific islands. Sixty-five photographs are included.

Download or read book Dangerous Ground written by Scott Ritter and published by Nation Books. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dangerous Ground, Scott Ritter, one of the world's leading experts on arms control, tells a bold and revisionist account of the inseparable histories of the post-World War II American presidency and nuclear weapons. Unpacking sixty years of nuclear history, Ritter shows that nuclear weapons have become such a fixture that they define present-day America on economic, military, political, and moral grounds. And despite fears of global nuclear proliferation, the greatest threat to international stability, Ritter argues, is the US's addiction to nuclear weapons. Even in light of Barack Obama's historic speech in April 2009—which called for the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons— America continues to guard a significant and dangerous nuclear stockpile. The notion that we are more secure with nuclear weapons is deeply entrenched in the American psyche—and virulently protected by forces in the US establishment. As long as this paradigm persists, Ritter suggests, there will be no fundamental US policy change, and as such, no change in global nuclear proliferation.

Download or read book The Manhattan Project and the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb written by Aaron Barlow and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-11-08 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This invaluable resource offers students a comprehensive overview of the Manhattan Project and the decision to drop the atomic bomb, with more than 80 in-depth articles on a variety of topics and dozens of key primary source documents. This book provides everything readers need to know about the Manhattan Project, the U.S. program that led to the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. It begins with a detailed introduction to the project and includes an alphabetical collection of relevant entries on such topics as the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb; Enrico Fermi, creator of the first nuclear reactor; Hiroshima, the target of the first atomic bomb; and Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project. Dozens of primary sources include eyewitness accounts, government memos, letters, press releases, and other important documents relevant to the establishment and success of the Manhattan Project. A set of four essays written by prominent scholars address whether the United States was justified in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. The book also includes a comprehensive chronology that reveals key moments related to the creation of the world's first nuclear weapon as well as a bibliography of resources that points readers toward additional information on the Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, and World War II.

Download or read book History of Contemporary Japan since World War II written by Edward R. Beauchamp and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best scholarship on the development of contemporary Japan This collection presents well over 100 scholarly articles on modern Japanese society, written by leading scholars in the field. These selections have been drawn from the most distinguished scholarly journals as well as from journals that are less well known among specialists; and the articles represent the best and most important scholarship on their particular topic. An understanding of the present through the lens of the past The field of modern Japan studies has grown steadily as Westerners have recognized the importance of Japan as a lading world economic force and an emerging regional power. The post-1945 economic success of the Japanese has, however, been achieved in the context of that nation's history, social structure, educational enterprise and political environment. It is impossible to understand the postwar economic miracle without an appreciation of these elements. Japan's economic emergence has brought about and in some cases, exacerbated already existing tensions, and these tensions have, in turn, had a significant impact on Japanese economic life. The series is designed to give readers a basic understanding of modern Japan-its institutions and its people-as we stand on the threshold of a new century, often referred to as the Pacific Century.

Download or read book Memoirs written by Edward Teller and published by . This book was released on 2009-09-09 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edward Teller is perhaps best known for his belief in freedom through strong defense. But this extraordinary memoir at last reveals the man behind the headlines--passionate and humorous, devoted and loyal. Never before has Teller told his story as fully as he does here. We learn his true position on everything from the bombing of Japan to the pursuit of weapons research in the post-war years. In clear and compelling prose, Teller chronicles the people and events that shaped him as a scientist, beginning with his early love of music and math, and continuing with his study of quantum physics under Werner Heisenberg. He also describes his relationships with some of the century's greatest minds--Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, Szilard, von Neumann--and offers an honest assessment of the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, the founding of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and his complicated relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer.Rich and humanizing, this candid memoir describes the events that led Edward Teller to be honored or abhorred, and provides a fascinating perspective on the ability of a single individual to affect the course of history.