I recommend Rhodes’ “Making of” and Dark Sun with American Prometheus and the Los Alamos Primer for people seeking a thorough initial introduction to the Manhattan Project and little bit of postscript.
Indulging myself a bit here. Essentially all elements of modern society have at least a tangential relationship with Los Alamos.
The symmetry between a nuclear detonation and what happened intellectually and culturally before and after the Manhattan Project is striking. An immense compression followed by a massive release of energy. In the bomb’s case that was an explosives and physics package that led to a good yield. In the Manhattan Project more broadly it was a remarkable concentration of human capability that impacted almost every element of hard science and culture.
Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb is deservedly regarded as a classic, but Dark Sun doesn't live up to the same standard [1]. For people interested in the technical history of the H-bomb, Anne Fitzpatrick's PhD thesis Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 is as good a single-document source as I've ever read:
Same feeling. "Dark Sun" feels very much like the grinding of an axe. But yes, "Making Of" is an absolute classic. Not just if you care about the field, but if you care about good science writing at all.
"The Making" covers half a century of scientific advancement, from the age of steam to the nuclear weapons. And it was at the end the "heroic age" in physics. It's hard _not_ to make it read like an epic tale.
"Dark Sun" is in contrast about a fairly small technological advancement, and it focuses more on politics. It's just too hard to make it similarly compelling.
He describes the moment Leo Szilard is crossing a street in the rain and suddenly envisions the nuclear chain reaction. Reading it I felt like the entire Earth must have shuddered at that moment and in that instant the destruction of the human race was suddenly laid out for Szilard.
I confess I did not know who Szilard was at that time.
In addition, he also wrote a collection of science fiction stories “the voice of the dolphins”. I’ll need to get it from the attic and see if I still like them. I thought they were pretty good but that was a long time ago. Thanks for making me think of him, again.
this crossing the street of leo szilard is also imprinted in my memory reading the book. aparently near british museum, bloomsbury. once i crossed the lights there too and recalled it.
I agree, Dark Sun and Rhodes' other recent books are OK, but Dark Sun is not a good read. It's almost as if he had some notes left over and turned them into a book in a hurry.
Dark Sun is not written as well, but it is really illuminating. The discussion of the Russian bomb efforts is fascinating and important. Also, Teller's role was told very honestly. I was told by colleagues at Los Alamos that when Teller would visit, some people wouldn't even shake his hand.
that's very grandiose and all, but this story is true. During the Fukishima aftermath here in the USA, a series of talks was called at UC Berkeley with the public invited. One of the talks was given by an actual nuclear weapons designer, who rarely stands in public for obvious reasons. A large, confident bearded man, he "commanded" the podium with ever more tales, speaking like that paragraph above.. Someone challenged him in some polite and meaningful way in a question, and just as he was starting to reply, people were getting uncomfortable due to the excessive air conditioning in the room -- it was hot outside but apparently the air conditioner was ON with a sensor not in the room? Someone went to check on the air conditioning exactly when the guy said "The USA has NEVER FAILED to achieve a stated objective in nuclear deterrance" or something similar, when the guy from the audience checking the thermostat said helplessly "its stuck ON, there is nothing I can do!"
it was so appropriate, had to repeat that here.. true.. and what a WEIRD collection of humanity were in the audience. Those old physics people and their kin, plus paranoids and vegans.. the lot.
the complex chains of armed and explosive weapons parts are supposed to be completely under control but a simple thermometer is somehow out of control and (mildly) harming everyone in the room <- obvious contradiction to "every mechanical weapon is always under control"
Eric Schlosser's Command and Control is a nice historical view of the nuclear defense establishment, and describes a particularly terrible missile site failure.
Not much happened " intellectually and culturally" after the said event!! Modern science was started with the likes of Galileo and Copernicus, was crystallized at the time of Newton and some great improvements happened in the 19th century and very early decades of the 20th. I think the impact of the steam engine and the discovery/development of vaccines in the 18th century are much more impactful than anything humans did after the Manhattan project, apart, maybe, from artificial fertilizers (Oh that was developed before the great war). Planes, cars, sliced bread all came before!!! There is only one exception, computers but these haven't done much to add to mankind happiness. They replaced fax machines and are trying to replace phones helped spread pornography and rage, but so far their effect on humanity is marginal compared to the steam engine or even sliced bread.
This is an excellent book - beautifully written, easy to read, and covering so many epic events that an entire film or series could be made from what is essentially a footnote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage (Operation Gunnerside).
The first part of the book, describing the history of atomic theory and experimental physics, is still one of my favorite pieces of science writing ever.
I will add that I also enjoyed the move Fat Man and Little Boy which was about the Manhattan project. Not an Oscar-worthy movie. But told a good story, centered around Oppenheimer.
Out of interest are you a physicist or chemist, or have a very good understanding of either of those subjects?
Asking because I found the book extremely dry and hard to get excited about (I only read the first half admittedly) due to it seeming to be aimed at people who do understand that stuff quite deeply. I'm amazed so many people can enjoy it.
For example, was I supposed to know who all those early twentieth century physicists were? It seemed like I was. Apart from Einstein and Oppenheimer I hadn't really heard of most of them.
Reading that book inspired me to watch the documentary Trinity and Beyond(https://youtu.be/p4yXfrYSmuA) a fascinating Shatner-narrated dive into the cold war era of nuclear testing and proliferation.
Only documentary I've ever bought the soundtrack to.
The thing that struck me from this book (or maybe it was in "Dark Sun") was how much the soviets were spying. We were giving them detailed plans for chemical factories, tire factories, engines, alloys, anything you can think of. They did not trust us so they would spy on all this stuff anyway. They would fill up a C-47 Skytrains(lend-lease) with stolen documents and fly them out to Moscow through Alaska.
I have to give the soviets the win on this one. Their spying was very effective. All that spying let them get the bomb PDQ.
Ya, that was the most memorable part of Dark Sun. IIRC the State department confronted the Soviet ambassador about the routine exfiltration of boxes and boxes of US R&D documents, and the response was something like "We're losing 10,000 people a day in this war. This is how you be our ally.".
I don't think it's that easy to explain. Putin could declare victory (Ukraine is demilitarized) and withdraw today, and most Russians would believe it (or at least, not care about the truth).
The worse but more explicable answer is that it's stubbornness and pride on Putin's part in his national aspirations for Russia, for his external image, not his internal one.
More like all that Uranium in the Czech and East German mines. The US thought that buying off the Uranium from East-Congo in Belgium protected them, but it only protected them from the Heisenberg bomb.
The bomb itself is trivial once you have enough uranium or plutonium.
This. It gets far worse the further you get - it wasn't just spying. Sean McMeekan's recent book details how pervasive it was - for example, Harry Dexter White was in the Department of treasury, helped write the Morgenthau plan, which extended the war, and assigned "the booty" of germany to the soviets and leaked it to the soviets and the press. That led to "a near-miraculous revitalization of the German army."
The soviets under Stalin played the allies _hard_ during World War 2.
At that point, a longer war in the West meant further and more secure Soviet advances in the East.
The Morgenthau plan implied a harsh post-war settlement for Germany, and at the time was viewed as effectively inspiring the Germans to fight on rather than capitulate or revolt against the failing Nazi regime.
Harvard had a gen ed History class mostly about that book. The class was graded based on how much your essay matched what the grader secretly wanted. No feedback except a single sentence and a letter grade.
Both Oppenheimer and Teller made numerous visits to Israel. Oppenheimer admitted he helped them make fast breeder reactors to produce plutonium for fission bombs and Teller admitted he helped them make fusion/hydrogen bombs.
Why is this information not included in modern coverage of Oppenheimer and Teller? Why were they given a slap on the wrist when other "Atomic spies" were fried in the electric chair for sharing nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union?
Can anyone comment on why this was downvoted? Is it not true? Even though sharing secrets with the Soviets would have been different from sharing them with Israel, if it was unsanctioned it still seems like this is a big deal.
I imagine they made numerous visits to Israel because they were Jewish, just as Einstein did. Although Oppenheimer is said to have been ashamed of his Jewishness and tried to hide it, he still was a supporter of Israel and of course this meant helping their nuclear program. He met with Weizmann in 47 and Ben-Gurion in 52, literally just after the holocaust. He helped Israel as he was concerned about Egyptian-Russian relations and securing the position of the only Jewish majority state in the world in the wake of the largest industrialized genocide. Ben-Gurion recruited many Jewish scientists with the explicit goal of ensuring something like the holocaust never happened again. The french also helped newly independent Israel.
Why would this information be relevant in modern coverage of Oppenheimer and Teller? They weren't atomic spies selling secrets to an enemy state? The USSR was obviously not equivalent to Israel given the US was the first country to even recognize Israel. Post-WW2 the world was fractured into the eastern and western blocs, and obviously the USSR was the enemy. So I don't see your point
Finally, Israel's nuclear weapons policy is drastically different to that of the US or the then-USSR. The purpose is entirely defensive as Israel is a small country surrounded by majority-Muslim countries which have invaded Israel several times; Israel cannot afford to lose a war as this threatens the very existence of Jews. The US and USSR had very different, intentionally antagonistic policies with the exact opposite of deliberate ambiguity.
Helping the nuclear program of the country you identify as your home country using secrets from the one you came from is normally called treason and espionage. The rest is the motivation, it doesn't change what it is.
Does anybody know if this book (or the movie) covers Oppenheimers attempt to murder his teacher with a cyanide laced apple? I don't care to invest time in a biography that whitewashes the man.
It's not a biography of Oppenheimer, it's a history of the making of the atomic bomb. Unsurprisingly, the parts of the book that deal with Oppenheimer - only a fraction of the book - are concerned with his involvement in the making of the atomic bomb. It does not mention the apple incident.
By contrast, the biography the movie is based on treats the apple incident at some length.
Both books are superb, in my opinion, and deserve their Pulitzers.
I am actually re-reading it right now (started 6 months ago). No, it doesn't cover that ~1924 event. But it's an excellent book. Ignoring it because it doesn't go into all the people's childhoods seems like an over-reaction.
Just to be clear, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" is about the lead up to and the making of the atomic bomb. It is not about Oppenheimer though it does go into great detail about all the major players.
20 year olds shouldn't be considered culpable for attempted murder now? Madness.
This is an important biographical detail not only because attempted murder is always relevant, but also because it is relevant to his involvement in an idea to poison Germany's food supply with radioactive strontium.
Edit for correction: it happened in 1926, he was 22 years old.
He was *22 years old, at Cambridge. He should have been expelled for it (not to mention criminally charged) but his father was wealthy so normal rules didn't apply.
In Oxbridge tutors are usually either PhD students or post-docs. You're an undergrad if you have a strong opinion about yours, since for them the ratio of tutor per student is quite low (usually 1:3).
The real point I should've addressed is not this tangential one but that the fact of the omission doesn't reduce the value of Rhode's telling of story of the atomic bomb at all. This HN post's existence is due to the book covering Oppenheimer which is currently a hot topic but the book is so much more than that.
From the Science History Institute:
"Fergusson was right to worry. Like all Cambridge students, Oppenheimer had an official tutor. This was an older graduate student who acted like a mentor. His tutor’s name was Patrick Blackett. Blackett was robust, popular, and good with his hands—everything Oppenheimer wasn’t. Oppenheimer developed a seething hatred for him.
Things came to a head in 1926 when Oppenheimer put a poisoned apple on Blackett’s desk, then left to vacation in Corsica.
Thankfully, Blackett never ate the apple. But Oppenheimer’s Corsica companions spilled the beans, and when Cambridge University found out, the administrators decided to press charges of attempted murder. And they would have. Except, Oppenheimer’s rich father happened to be visiting that week. He begged Cambridge to spare his precious, genius son. So, Oppenheimer got off with mere probation."
He wasn’t a psychopath, he was going through a complete mental breakdown during that year, and the actual details of what happened are murky. Some say he definitely put the apple there, others doubt it as he was known to exaggerate and make up stories. Cambridge got wind of the _accusation_ and then threatened to press charges but his father intervened.
The whole thing is a sad episode in his life, but no need to accuse him of being a psychopath. No psychopath would have changed his mind regarding nuclear proliferation like he did in his later life.
