Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element - Hardcover

Bernstein, Jeremy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0309102960 ISBN 13: 9780309102964

Publisher: Joseph Henry Press, 2007

Synopsis

When plutonium was first manufactured at Berkeley in the spring of 1941, there was so little of it that it was not visible to the naked eye. It took a year to accumulate enough so that one could actually see it. Now there is so much that we don't know what to do to get rid of it. We have created a monster.

The history of plutonium is as strange as the element itself. When scientists began looking for it, they did so simply in the spirit of inquiry, not certain whether there were still spots to fill on the periodic table. But the discovery of fission made it clear that this still-hypothetical element would be more than just a scientific curiosity—it could be a powerful nuclear weapon.

As it turned out, it is good for almost nothing else. Plutonium's nuclear potential put it at the heart of the World War II arms race—the Russians found out about it through espionage, the Germans through independent research, and everybody wanted some. Now, nearly everyone has some—the United States alone has about 47 metric tons—but it has almost no uses besides warmongering. How did the product of scientific curiosity become such a dangerous burden?

In his new history of this complex and dangerous element, noted physicist Jeremy Bernstein describes the steps that were taken to transform plutonium from a laboratory novelty into the nuclear weapon that destroyed Nagasaki. This is the first book to weave together the many strands of plutonium's story, explaining not only the science but the people involved.

About this title

About the Author

Jeremy Bernstein is a Harvard educated physicist and professional writer. He is a professor emeritus of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and was a staff writer for The New Yorker for 39 years. He has held appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Oxford, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique. He is the author of numerous popular science books and is known for his insightful profiles of top scientists. Bernstein currently divides his time between New York City and Aspen, Colorado.

Reviews

Physicist and former New Yorker staff writer Bernstein presents a scientifically rigorous (equations and all) but clearly written explanation of the recondite reasons why plutonium is supremely suited for bomb-making material—and little else. From the discovery of uranium in 1789 to the Manhattan Project, Nazi attempts at a nuclear bomb and the post-WWII efforts of the U.S.S.R. to become a nuclear power, Bernstein reviews the element's storied past. Although the discovery of the atom's structure has been covered before, Bernstein spins an accessible, insightful description of how the great scientists Curie, Bohr, Rutherford and Fermi, among others, deconstructed the atom through a combination of individual brilliance, a spirit of collaboration and serendipity. He also brings his acquaintance with several Los Alamos scientists (he interned at the laboratory in 1957) to the less canonical subject of the scientific and engineering problems inherent to building a working nuclear bomb. Here the search for the elusive element comes to center stage in this challenging but rewarding account (after 2005's Secrets of the Old One: Einstein 1905). (Apr.)
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Physicist Bernstein has written books about Einstein, Oppenheimer, and the German nuclear program. Here he tells the complicated story of plutonium, a chemical that appears in minute amounts in nature but which scientists working feverishly during World War II learned to manufacture in quantity. Plutonium's physics and chemistry are exceptionally complex, inspiring Glenn Seaborg, the nuclear chemist who "finally identified" the elusive element in 1941, to observe, "Plutonium is so unusual as to approach the unbelievable." It is also "fiendishly toxic." Bernstein, an intern at Los Alamos in 1957, analyzes plutonium via a mix of science and biography, the former tough going for nonscientists, the latter, in the form of thumbnail portraits of nuclear scientists from Marie Curie to Enrico Fermi and beyond, vivid and affecting. Irony and drama shape Bernstein's accounts of amazing feats of scientific deduction and world-endangering secrets, which give way to a sobering overview of the environmental damage caused by plutonium-producing reactors and the enormous threats embodied in today's global plutonium inventory. Although convoluted, Bernstein's unique history of the diabolical element is invaluable. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0309102960
• ISBN 13: 9780309102964
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 214