Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb

"In this study, two scholars examine historical perceptions of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Structured as a balanced dialogue, the authors analyze how the attacks are remembered by Japanese and others as well as the various debates surrounding the bombings."

Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, two iconic scientists of the twentieth century, belonged to different generations, with the boundary marked by the advent of quantum mechanics. By exploring how these men differed--in their worldview, in their work, and in their day--this book provides powerful insights into the lives of two critical figures and into the scientific culture of their times. I

On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought about the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II, the United States unleashed the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Valley in south-central New Mexico. Immensely more powerful than any weapon the world had seen, the bomb's effects on the surrounding and downwind communities of plants, animals, birds, and humans have lasted decades. In The First Atomic Bomb Janet Farrell Brodie explores the history of the Trinity test and those whose contributions have rarely, if ever, been discussed--the men and women who constructed, served, and witnessed the first test--as well as the downwinders who suffered the consequences of the radiation.

The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. However, the controversy over the rights and wrongs of dropping the bomb has tended to obscure a number of fundamental and sobering truths about the development of this fearsome weapon.The principle of killing thousands of enemy civilians from the air was already well established by 1945 and had been practised on numerous occasions by both sides during the Second World War. Moreover, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was conceived and built by an international community of scientists, not just by the Americans. Other nations (including Japan and Germany) were also developing atomic bombs in the first half of the 1940s, albeit hapharzardly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine anycombatant nation foregoing the use of the bomb during the war had it been able to obtain one. The international team of scientists organized by the Americans just got there first.As this fascinating new history shows, the bomb dropped by a US pilot that hot August morning in 1945 was in many ways the world's offspring, in both a technological and a moral sense. And it was the world that would have to face its consequences, strategically, diplomatically, and culturally, in the years ahead.

This book describes in fascinating detail the variety of experiments sponsored by the U.S. government in which human subjects were exposed to radiation, often without their knowledge or consent. Based on a review of hundreds of thousands of heretofore unavailable or classified documents, this Report tells a gripping story of the intricate relationship between science and the state.

Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly bringing it to a state of prominence. He paints a revealing portrait of Oppenheimer's life in Los Alamos, where in twenty remarkable, feverish months, and under his inspired guidance, the first atomic bomb was designed and built, a success that made Oppenheimer America's most famous scientist

Cowan weaves in intriguing anecdotes about a large cast of distinguished scientists--all related in his wry, self-deprecating manner. Besides his nearly forty-year career at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Cowan also helped establish banks in Los Alamos and Santa Fe, served as treasurer of the group that created the Santa Fe Opera, and in the late 1980s participated in founding the Santa Fe Institute and served as its first president. He anchored its interdisciplinary work in his quest to find "common ground between the relatively simple world of natural science and the daily, messy world of human affairs."

1939: fascism spreads across Europe, Franco marches on Barcelona and two German chemists discover the processes of atomic fission. In Berkeley, California, theoretical physicists recognise the horrendous potential of this new science: a weapon that draws its power from the very building blocks of the universe.Struggling to cast off his radical past and thrust into a position of power and authority, the charismatic J Robert Oppenheimer races to win the 'battle of the laboratories' and create a weapon so devastating that it would bring about an end not just to the Second World War but to all war.

Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, Truman and the Bomb will discomfort both Truman's critics and his supporters, and force historians to reexamine what they think they know about the end of the Pacific War.