Almost half of the book is the story of atomic and nuclear research from the work of the Curies to the discovery of fission by Hahn and Strassman, through the first world war, the rise of Hitler and the start of World War The rest is the story of the unsuccessful German effort to construct a weapon and the huge Manhattan District Project that did succeed, in the context of the terrible suffering during that terrible war. Laymen and scientists will find the narrative compelling and the science clearly explained.
Three physicists deservedly receive special attention: Leo Szilard, who persuaded President Roosevelt to support the bomb project and later attempted to prevent its use; Niels Bohr, who contributed so much to the unraveling of atomic and nuclear structure and then to measures that might pre vent nuclear catastrophe; and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who so effectively directed the Los Alamos National ...
