Making of the Atomic Bomb [ペーパーバック]

The book covers the subect on a number of levels. First is the factual story of the events leading up to the making of the bomb, which in themselves would be fascinating. For example, the fact that in two years the Manhattan Project built an industrial plant larger than the US automobile manufacturing base. That only in December of 1938 was the fission of Uranium first discovered, but the course of events were so rapid as to lead to the Trinity test in July of 1945. As a sometime program manager, but no General Groves, it was a fascinating account of the world's most significant projecct.

The second level is a very enjoyable history of nuclear physics as the reader is lead through the discovery process from the turn of the century to thermonuclear fusion. That discovery process is the vehicle for the third and fourth levels of the book. The stories and personalities of the scientists, around the world, who added to that knowledge, what shaped and motivated their lives and how they indiviually gained insight, brilliant insight, into the riddle that was physics. I felt I got to know people like Rutherford, Bohr, Oppenheimer, Fermi, Szilard, and Teller. The fourth level was that the insight was not really individual but collaborative. This book is one of the finest descriptions of the scientific process and how this open, collaborative and communicative process works across boundaries.

The last level, the biggest surprise and the most profoundly unsettling, was the realization of how this event, inevitable, has "changed everything" about human history - an appreciation, I believe 55 years later, we who did not participate in the Manhattan Project, have yet to fully realize. Niels Bohr realized it in an instant.

The book is superbly written. The personalies came alive, I felt I knew Niels Bohr. It was absolutely suspenseful even though you know the ending (you don't really). I was caught up in the story as though it were a novel. After reading late the night before, one evening I came home and declared to my wife "They dropped the bomb!". Such was the intensity of my participation in the book that my voice had excitement to it. She was horrified. I had to explain, "No, no. In the book. On Hiroshima". When history is that exciting it is hard to beat.

This is one of only a few books about which I can say that I will never quite view the world the same again.

A masterpiece and a must read.

Instead, the book opens as an exploration into the minds of some brilliantly eccentric professors and intellectuals struggling within theoretical physics on the very cutting edge of the unknown, and then stretching it in quite unsuspected and revolutionary ways. And as the critical mass of theoretical knowledge began to cluster within the fairly small community of like-minded souls, the scene changes based on world politics and the rise of fascism. It is an interesting curiosity that had Hitler been less vitriolic in his condemnation of Jews, he might have forestalled the emigration of critical players in this unfolding melodrama, and so might have altered his own destiny and that of his most important ally, Japan. For just as the kluge of intellectuals conceded that such a weapon was indeed theoretically possible and feasible, many of them began to flee to more hospitable environs, including both the USA and Britain. Without their help, it is questionable as to whether the Manhattan Project could have ever succeeded.

The author is also quite convincing in his take concerning the long-rumored notion that the Nazis were also rushing toward development of the bomb, which Rhodes believes to be unsubstantiated by the available evidence. In fact, he argues exactly the opposite, that the Nazis were neither very interested in the development of such a weapon, and did not enjoy sufficient access to the kinds of materials they would have needed to mount a serious developmental nuclear program. Yet the majority of the book focuses memorably on the events transpiring in and around Los Alamos. The program to develop a useable atomic bomb was so massive and so secret that it is hard to imagine its scope at the time. Rhodes' prose admirably supports his sometimes almost confessional style, and he writes well enough to interest us in the most prosaic description even as he is describing events and people who literally transformed the world. This book has an incredible panorama to its rather ambitious scope, which includes biographical, scientific, sociological, political, and economic elements to it. It is indeed a classic, and deserves its status as one of the best-written accounts of the events of World War Two yet published. Enjoy!