Peace and War - Hardcover

Serber, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231105460 ISBN 13: 9780231105460

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Peace and War is the memoir of one of the key scientists involved in the atomic bomb and the chief research assistant and intimate friend of J. Robert Oppenheimer. A prominent member of the Manhattan Project, Robert Serber was one of a team of scientists who assembled the bombs on Tinian Island for transport to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was also one of the first Americans to walk among the Japanese ruins after the catastrophe. Serber tells movingly of his wartime experiences at Tinian Island and in Japan, in letters to his wife, Charlotte, herself a key player at Los Alamos and the only female group leader there. These letters depict simply - almost dispassionately - what Serber saw: the rows of iron office safes protruding from the rubble of Hiroshima; the grazing horse whose hair had been scorched on one side by the fireball but was untouched on the other; the B-29s stacked on the runway "like cars coming back to a city on a Sunday night." Serber is also eloquent about the troubles he faced as a result of his refusal to take part in public debate about the morality of his wartime work; how his opposition to rapidly developing the hydrogen bomb earned him the enmity of Edward Teller and others; how he was investigated and his security clearance challenged, several years before Oppenheimer's. Serber also recounts many previously untold stories involving Oppenheimer, Murray Gell-Mann, Ernest O. Lawrence, Edward Teller, and others. This portrait of one of the most important theoretical physicists of the 20th century brings to life the excitement of Oppenheimer's close-knit circle; the controversy of the Manhattan Project; and the thrill of being present at the creation of so manypioneering discoveries, from black holes to quarks.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Peace and War is the memoir of one of the key scientists involved in the atomic bomb and the chief research assistant and intimate friend of J. Robert Oppenheimer. A prominent member of the Manhattan Project, Robert Serber was one of a team of scientists who assembled the bombs on Tinian Island for transport to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was also one of the first Americans to walk among the Japanese ruins after the catastrophe. Serber tells movingly of his wartime experiences at Tinian Island and in Japan, in letters to his wife, Charlotte, herself a key player at Los Alamos and the only female group leader there. These letters depict simply - almost dispassionately - what Serber saw: the rows of iron office safes protruding from the rubble of Hiroshima; the grazing horse whose hair had been scorched on one side by the fireball but was untouched on the other; the B-29s stacked on the runway "like cars coming back to a city on a Sunday night". Serber is also eloquent about the troubles he faced as a result of his refusal to take part in public debate about the morality of his wartime work; how his opposition to rapidly developing the hydrogen bomb earned him the enmity of Edward Teller and others; how he was investigated and his security clearance challenged, several years before Oppenheimer's. Serber also recounts many previously untold stories involving Oppenheimer, Murray Gell-Mann, Ernest O. Lawrence, Edward Teller, and others. This portrait of one of the most important theoretical physicists of the 20th century brings to life the excitement of Oppenheimer's close-knit circle; the controversy of the Manhattan Project; and the thrill of being present at the creation of so manypioneering discoveries, from black holes to quarks.

Reviews

One of the creators of the atomic bomb recalls its building and its effect both on its targets and on the world at large. Serber (1909-97) grew up in a hotbed of Jewish intellectualism in Philadelphia. The author's reminiscences of his early days include his first car (a Model T Ford), college summer jobs, and his good luck in applying to graduate school at Wisconsin, where he managed to get an assistantship (a rarity in 1930). After meeting Robert Oppenheimer at a physics seminar, he took a position as his assistant; the association with ``Oppie'' eventually led him to work on the first atomic bomb. (He was the first person Oppenheimer invited to join the Manhattan Project.) Serber offers an insider's perspective, including his belief that Einstein's famous letter to Roosevelt urging research on nuclear fission actually delayed the bomb project nearly a year. He reveals that the concept of the thermonuclear bomb was already on the drawing board by July of 1942, when Edward Teller suggested it in a meeting and everyone promptly turned to the new problem--despite the fact that the atomic bomb had not yet been built. But after the Trinity test, the atom bomb was a reality; Serber was on the team that assembled the bombs dropped on Japan. The book reprints his letters of the time, revealing his belief that he had done what was necessary to end the war; then his accounts of visits to the target cities, to view the destruction firsthand and to measure the blasts' effects. After the war, he fell under the same cloud of suspicion as his mentor Oppenheimer, but managed to clear himself and went on to hold major appointments, including direction of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Co-author Crease (The Second Creation, 1986) contributes a preface. An extremely readable memoir by a man who was on the frontiers of physics for half a century. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This is a thoroughly fascinating memoir by one of the principal scientists in the Manhattan Project. The late Serber calculated the critical mass for the uranium bomb and designed its gun-type detonation mechanism. After Nagasaki, he surveyed the destruction, deducing from burnt crates and crushed gas cans the explosive parameters of the bomb. The laconic acuity with which he recalls his part in the nuclear drama is this memoir's hallmark and also applies to his remarks about the quirks of famous physicists he worked with. His characteristic style is dry understatement: having briefed Paul Dirac on his research, the young Serber "braced for his comments. [Dirac] said, `Where is the nearest post office?'" Regrettably, Serber, a close friend of Oppenheimer's, is not very expansive about Oppenheimer's charismatic and complicated personality; in any event, Serber felt no guilt over working on the bomb, as Oppenheimer eventually did. This absorbing and pithy memoir will appeal to fans of Richard Rhodes' classic The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987). Gilbert Taylor

Nonphysicists will find parts of this fascinating memoir unintelligible, but that should not be a deterrent. Seber, one of the most important theoretical physicists of this century, was a key member of the Manhattan Project, which developed the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War ll. He was also a close friend of Robert Oppenheimer. His memoir is replete with stories and anecdotes about physics, physicists, and his own personal life, though it is his wartime experiences that will likely generate the most interest here. One of the first people to view the damage caused by the bombs, he describes what he saw in letters to his wife, Charlotte. Serber's style is very matter of fact no matter what he is discussing, and though one wishes he had elaborated on certain aspects of his life and relationships, it is the science of physics that dominates his recollections. Historian Crease provides an excellent introduction, putting Serber and his work into the context of the times. Serber died in June 1997. Highly recommended for science collections.AKate Kelly, Treadwell Lib., Massachusetts General Hosp., Boston
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231105460
• ISBN 13: 9780231105460
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240