Nuclear Science

In this Very Short Introduction, John Heilbron draws on sources never before presented in English to cover the life and work of one of the most creative physicists of the 20th century. In addition to his role as a scientist, Heilbron considers Bohr as a statesman and Danish cultural icon, who built scientific institutions and pushed for the extension of international cooperation in science to all nation states. As a humanist he was concerned with the cultivation of all sides of the individual, and with the complementary contributions of all peoples to the sum of human culture.

A comprehensive study of the missile system that formed a critical component of the United States' nuclear arsenal. The Titan II ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) program was developed by the United States military to bolster the size, strength, and speed of the nation's strategic weapons arsenal in the 1950s and 1960s.

In Bomb Power, Garry Wills reveals how the atomic bomb transformed our nation down to its deepest constitutional roots - by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state---in ways still felt today. A masterful reckoning from one of America's preeminent historians, Bomb Power draws a direct line from the Manhattan Project to the usurpations of George W. Bush.

During the Cold War, American policymakers sought nuclear advantages to offset an alleged Soviet edge. Policymakers hoped that US nuclear capabilities would safeguard deterrence, when backed perhaps by a set of coercive tactics. But policymakers also hedged their bets with plans to fight a nuclear war to their advantage should deterrence fail. In The False Promise of Superiority, James H. Lebovic argues that the US approach was fraught with peril and remains so today.

On the night of March 26, 1938, nuclear physicist Ettore Majorana boarded a ship, cash and passport in hand. He was never seen again. In A Brilliant Darkness, theoretical physicist Joo Magueijo tells the story of Majorana and his research group, the Via Panisperna Boys, who discovered atomic fission in 1934. As Majorana, the most brilliant of the group, began to realize the implications of what they had found, he became increasingly unstable.

In The End Is Always Near, Dan Carlin connects the past and future in fascinating and colourful ways, exploring a question that has hung over humanity like the sword of Damocles from the collapse of the Bronze Age to the nuclear era - that of human survival. Combining his trademark mix of storytelling, history and thought experiments, Carlin forces us to consider what sounds like fantasy: that we might suffer the same fate as all previous civilisations. Will our world ever become a ruin for future archaeologists to dig up and explore?

In 2015, a major story broke exposing Hillary Clinton's role in approving the sale of an American uranium company to the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom. An indispensable guide to the hidden background of recent events, Fallout shows how Putin's bid for nuclear dominance produced a series of political scandals that ultimately posed one of the greatest threats to our democracy in modern American history.

Covering the development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, the origins and early course of the Cold War and the advent of the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s, Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War explores a still neglected aspect of Winston Churchill's career: his relationship with and thinking on nuclear weapons.

Terry and the team have settled into a new routine of taking jobs for General Lappert's task force between road trips to build up Terry's magic. But life as the team knows it is about to crumble. The end is coming, and the only question is what that's going to look like. Going to hell in a handbasket would be a picnic compared to what's about to go down . . . The government is on to Terry's secret and the only thing they can do is RUN. It's time for everyone to make their choice—stay and risk the consequences, or leave with Terry. There are exit strategies, and then there are exit strategies.

In wide-ranging interviews with David Barsamian, his longtime interlocutor, Noam Chomsky asks listeners to consider "the world we are leaving to our grandchildren": one imperiled by the escalation of climate change and the growing potential for nuclear war. If the current system is incapable of dealing with these threats, he argues, it's up to us to radically change it.

Is it worthwhile to invest one hour of your time to learning about nuclear war survival? The devastating events in Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved that there will always be survivors in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. They did a few things right that made all the difference, and after listening to this short audiobook, you’ll know these critical steps too....

The world's last freelance detective, Zach Johnson, must find the assassin who murdered Sexy Sprocket and two other members of the World Council. His investigation leads him to the moon - and to a tall, sensuous, blue-haired beauty named Lea who possesses psychic powers and powerful ambitions....

An Afro-Russian KGB agent returns to his forefathers' homeland — Chicago — to track down a Russian dissident prepared to unleash the ultimate doomsday device. Dissatisfied by the results of the Post World War I Civil Rights movement, angry African-Americans immigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930's, for the promise of equality under Communism. Colonel Damian Turner, a native Afro-Russian KGB agent, returns to Chicago, the former home of his grandfather, as part of a worldwide manhunt for one of his nation's highest ranking officers, Marshall Victor Craig. Craig, infuriated at the ...

On June 21, 2016, Pacific Gas & Electric Company announced a plan to shutter California’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025. The plan was hailed by environmental groups and politicians around the country. Then, suddenly, the state’s Democratic establishment reversed the decision, and in 2024 the Biden-Harris administration awarded the plant $1.1 billion in credits to extend its life. What happened in between? In Atomic Dreams, journalist and lifelong environmentalist Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow unearths the surprising answers—and the deep-seated conflicts behind them.

In this concise account of why America used atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, J. Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. Delineating what was known and not known by American leaders at the time, Walker evaluates the options available for ending the war with Japan. In this new edition, Walker incorporates a decade of new research - mostly from Japanese archives only recently made available - that provides fresh insight on the strategic considerations that led to dropping the bomb.

Once home to the United States's largest plutonium production site, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is laced with 56 million gallons of radioactive waste. The threat of an explosive accident at Hanford is all too real—an event that could be more catastrophic than Chernobyl. The EPA designated Hanford the most toxic place in America; it is also the most expensive environmental clean-up job the world has ever seen, with a $677 billion price tag that keeps growing.

My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat.

It's 1955, and Benjamin Burrows and Janie Scott are trying to live a safe, normal life in America. It's not easy when they have the power to prevent nuclear disaster, and sinister forces are circling. Soon the advice of a mysterious, unscrupulous magician propels Janie and Benjamin into danger and toward the land of the dead.

For Agent Curie, the battlefield has become his laboratory. While other scientists tinker away at Los Alamos, he hunts down the masterminds behind the Nazi nuclear program. But after the first nuke drops on Japan, military intelligence assigns him to a new secret mission. A top German scientist has disappeared. A devastating firefight in Berlin is the only lead. The clues? Radiation spikes. Tanks with holes melted right through their armor. What does it all mean? There's a new weapon in the field. One with more devastating potential than anyone can imagine. A nuclear gun that fits in the ...

Two of America's leading scholar-diplomats, Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, have combed sources in several languages, interviewed leading figures, and drawn on their own firsthand experience to bring to life the choices that molded the contemporary world. Zeroing in on the key moments of decision, the might-have-beens, and the human beings working through them, they explore both what happened and what could have happened, to show how one world ended and another took form.