Bruce Cameron Reed – författare

Though thousands of articles and books have been published on various aspects of the Manhattan Project, this book is the first comprehensive single-volume history prepared by a specialist for curious readers without a scientific background. 

This project, the United States Army’s program to develop and deploy atomic weapons in World War II, was a pivotal event in human history. The author presents a wide-ranging survey that not only tells the story of how the project was organized and carried out, but also introduces the leading personalities involved and features simplified but accurate descriptions of the underlying science and the engineering challenges. The technical points are illustrated by reader-friendly graphics.  . 

The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth century. This revised and updated 4th edition explores the challenges that faced the scientists and engineers of the Manhattan Project. It gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the level of an upper-year undergraduate physics student by examining the details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, analytic and numerical models of the fission process, how critical masses can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what factors complicate bomb design. An extensive list of references and a number of exercises for self-study are included. 

Revisions to this fourth edition include many upgrades and new sections. Improvements are made to, among other things, the analysis of the physics of the fission barrier, the time-dependent simulation of the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and the discussion of tamped bomb cores.New sections cover, for example, composite bomb cores, approximate methods for various of the calculations presented, and the physics of the polonium-beryllium "neutron initiators" used to trigger the bombs.

The author delivers in this book an unparalleled, clear and comprehensive treatment of the physics behind the Manhattan project.

This book provides a guide to the people, places, artifacts, events, terminology, scientific concepts, groups, critical documents, and code phrases associated with the Manhattan Project. It is of interest to all readers/researchers (students, journalists, policy-makers, specialist and non-specialist instructors and scientists) who need to rapidly access authoritative, self-contained definitions/descriptions of such items and references to authoritative sources. The individual entries are extensively cross-referenced.

The development of atomic bombs under the auspices of the U. S. Army’s Manhattan Project during World War II is considered to be the outstanding news story of the twentieth century. In this book, a physicist and expert on the history of the Project presents a comprehensive overview of this momentous achievement. The first three chapters cover the history of nuclear physics from the discovery of radioactivity to the discovery of fission, and would be ideal for instructors of a sophomore-level “Modern Physics” course. Student-level exercises at the ends of the chapters are accompanied by answers. Chapter 7 covers the physics of first-generation fission weapons at a similar level, again accompanied by exercises and answers. For the interested layman and for non-science students and instructors, the book includes extensive qualitative material on the history, organization, implementation, and results of the Manhattan Project and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. The reader also learns about the legacy of the Project as reflected in the current world stockpiles of nuclear weapons.