Regular marked price: $65.00Discount Price: $58.50
Cost Savings: $6.50 (10%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 355
EAN num: 9780521541176
ISBN number: 0521541174
Label: Cambridge University Press
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 528
Printing Date: February 12, 2004
Publishing house: Cambridge University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 548147
Studio: Cambridge University Press
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This volume is a lucid and accurate history of the technical research that led to the very first atomic bombs. The authors explore how the 'critical assembly' of scientists, engineers, and military personnel at Los Alamos, responding to wartime deadlines, collaborated to create a new approach to large-scale research. The book opens with an introduction laying out major themes. After a synopsis of the prehistory of the bomb project, from the discovery of nuclear fission to the start of the Manhattan Engineer District, and an overview of the early materials program, the book examines the establishment of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the implosion and gun assembly programs, nuclear physics research, chemistry and metallurgy, explosives, uranium and plutonium development, confirmation of spontaneous fission in pile-produced plutonium, the thermonuclear bomb, critical assemblies, the Trinity test, and delivery of the combat weapons.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
Hoddeson, Henriksen, Meade & Westfal
Critical Assembly, ISBN number 0-521-54117-4
Cambridge University Press, 2004
The title of the book has double meaning. It denotes the critical assembly of uranium 235, or plutonium 239 to start the chain reaction in an atomic bomb. But it also points to the »critical« assembly of numerous scientists, engineers, technicians and US Army personnel. The authors described how in a race with time all these experts were pursuing a single objective: to make an atomic bomb before the Nazi scientists could (supposedly) do it. Each of them was working in his or her special field, but only a handful of the privileged ones knew they were making an atomic bomb. The resolute, competent and mercilessly hard driving conductor of this huge orchestra was General Leslie R. Groves; its concertmaster was the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. To carry on this parable, the musicians - with rare exceptions - were obliged to play their scores with plugged ears. The conductor allowed them to know only their own score, because the whole composition named MED (Manhattan Engineering District) must not become known before the end of the war.
Though the fission was discovered in Germany (in the winter 1938/39) many Jewish scientists, being suppressed under Nazi-fascist reign, had left Europe as soon as they could. Among them A. Einstein, H. Bethe, R. Peierls, C. Fuchs (unfortunately also a soviet spy), N. Bohr, E. Teller, E. Wiegner, L. Szilard, E. Fermi and J. von Neumann, to name just the most important ones, arrived in the USA, where they contributed essentially to MED. When Groves began leading the project, it started advancing like an avalanche. What in 1939 was deemed to be a science fiction has become a real bomb within just six years.
To quench the thirst for information after the very first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 6, 1945, Henry de Wolf Smyth of MED had prepared the book "Atomic Energy for Military Purposes". In it the most basic knowledge of how an atomic bomb works, as well as the enormous effort of MED to make it, was made public. But in its preface Groves attached a latch, telling us this is all, which can be released at the time; take it, do not ask any further questions - or else! Though many books published after this date had disclosed this or that, the book "Critical Assembly" has definitely broken that latch by disclosing many minute details, which were classified almost up to present time. In the book we learned how the scientists and other personnel, forced to work under the circumstances as outlined above, starting with micrograms of highly enriched uranium 235 and (up to then non existent) plutonium, have gradually extended the production up to kilogram quantities, determined the critical masses, avoided the nuclear explosion, and had managed to build two combat-ready weapons, which ended the war. The details will certainly be interesting for physicists as well as for engineers of chemistry, electronics, metallurgy, mechanics, ordnance and some others. For the layman the minute descriptions would be mostly too difficult to understand and the same might be valid even for professionals, if the matter lies too far outside of their specialty. But as a whole, the book is a great work of reference, with an enormous collection of interesting data, not known so far. On top of all this the book has 74 pages of references.
Unfortunately, the Department of Energy was too thorough when removing many "sensitive data" from the original text. Initially numerous details became gradually scarce when the discusion advanced toward August 1945. However, some common sense and simple calculations, based on the data published in many other books, magazines and films, converge to the following conclusions: Approximately 10 lbs (4.53 kg) of plutonium was used in the Fat Man and 70 lbs (31.75 kg) of 88 % enriched uranium 235 in the Little Boy bomb. In the uranium bomb the active material of about 3 critical masses was divided into 4 projectiles and one equilateral cylindrical target, with holes to fit the projectiles, placed inside the massive tungsten steel tamper. When three critical masses are assembled, the chain reaction starts spontaneously within about 0.1 s; so an initiator (with dangerously radioactive polonium 210) is basically not needed. Why was such data not mentioned in the book, which is full of less important details? Today nobody would waste so much precious, highly enriched uranium by not resorting to implosion, which needs less than one critical mass. On the other hand, the metallurgy of plutonium is a science in itself and so is the implosion. So why be so scared?
Peter Staric, PhD, BSEE
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Rated by buyers -
Depending of your technical proficiency.
Engineers or physicists will love it as an introduction to the Manhattan Project, and would subsequently read Rhodes excellent books to get a larger view.
Critical Assembly will allow non-technical people to understand the degree of complexity of this undertaking.
Being of the latter kind, I naturally read almost every other book about the subject, before resigning myself to buy this one. It's been a very pleasant surprise to find out that it's very readable. You will not get everything from the very detailled technical processes described but it's comforting to understand that at that time, they didn't either.
The main feeling throughout the book amounts to "oh, those people where in the dark most of the time, you could almost say it's been really incidental that they pulled it out in the end".
You precisely get how tedious this has been and how sparks of individual genius have made it possible at all.
The cover is pink, though.
Rated by buyers 
-
Without doubt, this is the finest account of the technical aspects of the race to produce an atomic weapon at Los Alamos before the end of WWII. As other reviewers have noted, you don't need a degree in physics to read this book; however, you do need endurance.
"Critical Assembly" is a plodding, straightforward, chronological narrative of how talent and materials came together to make a bomb; a techno-nerd's dream. There is no endeavor to delve into politics and ethics, make the characters "come alive" with interesting personal glimpses, or place it all in historical perspective. For that you need Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."
Still, the authors did not write "Critical Assembly" to be a riveting historical novel soon to be a blockbuster movie. For technical information, it is the best single book available. To understand why anyone would care how the atomic bomb was made, let alone plod through the technical details, read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" first.
Rated by buyers 
-
This book is THRILLING in the scope and depth of its description of HOW the bomb was made. This was a unique historical event in that the best brains in the world, stimulated by a sense of extreem urgency and given, in effect, unlimited physical and financial resources accomplished in the space of three years somthing that in the 1930's was considered as Science Fiction.
The book is highly readable and understandable by non technical people. This book is proof that "once upon a time" we did things "Right the First Time" in this country. An outstanding historical and technical account of the "ultimate" invention.
Rated by buyers -
Very well written and does not overwhelm the reader with technical minutia. This is an excellent companion to Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb and will please any student of the history of science.
Find other books like this one:
