Physics War

An epic story of science and technology at the very limits of human understanding: the monumental race to build the first atomic weapons.

Rich in personality, action, confrontation, and deception, The First War of Physics is the first fully realized popular account of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon. The book draws on declassified material, such as MI6's Farm Hall transcripts, coded Soviet messages cracked by American cryptographers in the Venona project, and interpretations by Russian scholars of documents from the Soviet archives.

What happens when a young physicist searches for hidden order and finds himself caught between genius, war, politics, and suspicion? Before David Bohm became the visionary thinker of the implicate order, before he challenged quantum orthodoxy, before Einstein, exile, and his later reputation as a scientific mystic, he was a restless student trying to understand the invisible structure beneath reality. This book follows Bohm through his college and young adult years, from Pennsylvania State to Caltech, from Berkeley to the charged intellectual world of J. Robert Oppenheimer. It explores the ...

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award** The definitive history of nuclear weapons—from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the...

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb. Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they...

Dr. Yoshio Nishina is sometimes known as the father of modern nuclear physics in Imperial pre-war Japan. Nishina was a 20th Century Japanese engineer and physicist well respected in Japan. However, he was less known in the West, except among a few American physicists and in Nazi Germany. He led the efforts of Imperial Japan to develop an atomic bomb or A-bomb before and during the second World War (WWII). In 1921, RIKEN provided funding for Nishina to study in Europe. There he met several famous Western physicists. At Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, he worked under Ernest ...

In Rust journalist Jonathan Waldman travels from Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to meet the colorful and often reclusive people concerned with corrosion. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks with a brave artist and nearly gets kicked out of Can School. Across the Arctic he follows a massive high-tech robot, hunting for rust in the Alaska pipeline.

New York Times Bestseller An exploration of the age-old complicity between skywatchers and warfighters, from the best-selling author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. In this fascinating foray into the centuries-old relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist...

From the Marginalian creator and bestselling author Maria Popova, a bold exploration of what makes a meaningful life. "Natasha McElhone narrates Popova's layered prose at a measured pace...and captivates whether she's voicing the concerns of Venus or presenting a simple rhyming couplet." —...

What truly happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the final days of World War II? Beyond the iconic mushroom cloud images, what do science and history reveal about the events that changed the world forever? In "20 Facts You Didn’t Know About Hiroshima and Nagasaki," a Ph.D. physicist provides a clear, rigorous, and accessible analysis of the nuclear bombings that marked the end of the War in the Pacific. Moving beyond complex physics, this book reaches into the profound human dimension of the catastrophe, answering questions that have persisted for generations. Why did Hiroshima return...

As we delve into the fascinating life of Robert Oppenheimer - the American theoretical physicist who is best known for his notable role in the development of the atomic bomb - we will explore the moments and achievements that shaped his extraordinary journey. Often referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer's story goes beyond his involvement in the Manhattan Project. Throughout this series, we will uncover aspects of his personal life, early academic triumphs, and contributions to the scientific community that have left an indelible mark on history.

The definitive biography of the brilliant, charismatic, and very human physicist and innovator Enrico Fermi In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of...

A warning to humankind from one of the world’s greatest physicists 'What drives these pages is the guilty conscience of my profession, theoretical physics. My sole aim is to help avert what seems to me to be the unintended, yet scarcely avoidable, end point of the current politics of the...

Medieval knights were like armoured tanks in combat. They often made quick work of their enemies. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped medieval knights win victory!

Two bestselling authors first met in a televised Caltech debate on “the future of God,” one an articulate advocate for spirituality, the other a prominent physicist. This remarkable book is the product of that serendipitous encounter and the contentious—but respectful—clash of worldviews...

No less a figure than Bertrand Russell remarked that Aristotle’s Physics was ‘extremely influential and dominated science until the time of Galileo’. This was despite the fact that this work is as much a collection of ‘lectures on nature’ rather than dealing with the science of physics...

Ninja warriors were masters of stealth and disguise. They could quickly defeat their enemies without raising the alarm. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped ninjas successfully achieve their secret missions.

They erased his research. Then they erased him. Now they need him to save the world. Physicist Dean Eckert spent years developing a theory that made powerful institutions deeply uncomfortable. Then his work vanished—scrubbed from databases, stripped from records, buried beneath layers of institutional silence. His career followed. His name followed. The life he built, gone. He should have been forgotten. Then the anomaly appeared. A phenomenon unlike anything in recorded science begins spreading across the planet, warping gravitational fields, destabilizing critical systems, and turning ...

When gladiators fought in combat, there was usually only one winner. The victor may not have realized it, but he owed his success to science. Learn how science helped gladiators find victory in the arena.

Samurai warriors were experts in hand-to-hand combat and fighting from horseback. They may not have realized it, but they owed their success to science. Learn how science helped the samurai to become some of the greatest warriors in history.

The birth of a world-changing idea in the middle of a bloodbath Einstein’s War is a riveting exploration of both the beauty of scientific creativity and enduring horrors of human nature. These two great forces battle in a story that culminates with a victory now a century old, the mind...