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Author: Steve Olson Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393634981 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
A thrilling narrative of scientific triumph, decades of secrecy, and the unimaginable destruction wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb. It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce and weaponize the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi, and many thousands of others—the physicists, engineers, laborers, and support staff at the facility—manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilization. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Steve Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Olson, who grew up just twenty miles from Hanford’s B Reactor, recounts how a small Washington town played host to some of the most influential scientists and engineers in American history as they sought to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever created. The Apocalypse Factory offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and, ultimately, of lethal hubris.
Author: Steve Olson Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393634981 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 331
Book Description
A thrilling narrative of scientific triumph, decades of secrecy, and the unimaginable destruction wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb. It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce and weaponize the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi, and many thousands of others—the physicists, engineers, laborers, and support staff at the facility—manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilization. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Steve Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Olson, who grew up just twenty miles from Hanford’s B Reactor, recounts how a small Washington town played host to some of the most influential scientists and engineers in American history as they sought to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever created. The Apocalypse Factory offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and, ultimately, of lethal hubris.
Author: Eileen Welsome Publisher: Delta ISBN: 0307767337 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 724
Book Description
When the vast wartime factories of the Manhattan Project began producing plutonium in quantities never before seen on earth, scientists working on the top-secret bomb-building program grew apprehensive. Fearful that plutonium might cause a cancer epidemic among workers and desperate to learn more about what it could do to the human body, the Manhattan Project's medical doctors embarked upon an experiment in which eighteen unsuspecting patients in hospital wards throughout the country were secretly injected with the cancer-causing substance. Most of these patients would go to their graves without ever knowing what had been done to them. Now, in The Plutonium Files, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eileen Welsome reveals for the first time the breadth of the extraordinary fifty-year cover-up surrounding the plutonium injections, as well as the deceitful nature of thousands of other experiments conducted on American citizens in the postwar years. Welsome's remarkable investigation spans the 1930s to the 1990s and draws upon hundreds of newly declassified documents and other primary sources to disclose this shadowy chapter in American history. She gives a voice to such innocents as Helen Hutchison, a young woman who entered a prenatal clinic in Nashville for a routine checkup and was instead given a radioactive "cocktail" to drink; Gordon Shattuck, one of several boys at a state school for the developmentally disabled in Massachusetts who was fed radioactive oatmeal for breakfast; and Maude Jacobs, a Cincinnati woman suffering from cancer and subjected to an experimental radiation treatment designed to help military planners learn how to win a nuclear war. Welsome also tells the stories of the scientists themselves, many of whom learned the ways of secrecy on the Manhattan Project. Among them are Stafford Warren, a grand figure whose bravado masked a cunning intelligence; Joseph Hamilton, who felt he was immune to the dangers of radiation only to suffer later from a fatal leukemia; and physician Louis Hempelmann, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the plan to inject humans with potentially carcinogenic doses of plutonium. Hidden discussions of fifty years past are reconstructed here, wherein trusted government officials debated the ethical and legal implications of the experiments, demolishing forever the argument that these studies took place in a less enlightened era. Powered by her groundbreaking reportage and singular narrative gifts, Eileen Welsome has created a work of profound humanity as well as major historical significance. From the Hardcover edition.
Author: John Zakour Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101500301 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
"My name is Zachary Nixion Johnson. I am the last private detective on Earth...not exactly one hundred percent true, but it sounds good." "The year is 2057 and, after a handful of species-altering upheavals, earth-shatteringc cataclysms, history changing extra-terrestrial contacts, and pop-culture disasters, the world is now a pretty safe place..." "But every once in a while some crazy thing happens that threatens all of society, all of humanity, or the entire space-time continuum." "And for some reason it always happens on my watch." So begins the first installment of this all-new, all-hilarious trilogy that pokes fun at the pulps, and skewers sci-fi, as a private dick of the future goes after the most dangerous prey of all...The Plutonium Blonde.
Author: Frank von Hippel Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 9811399018 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 193
Book Description
This book provides a readable and thought-provoking analysis of the issues surrounding nuclear fuel reprocessing and fast-neutron reactors, including discussion of resources, economics, radiological risk and resistance to nuclear proliferation. It describes the history and science behind reprocessing, and gives an overview of the status of reprocessing programmes around the world. It concludes that such programs should be discontinued. While nuclear power is seen by many as the only realistic solution to the carbon emission problem, some national nuclear establishments have been pursuing development and deployment of sodium-cooled plutonium breeder reactors, and plutonium recycling. Its proponents argue that this system would offer significant advantages relative to current light water reactor technology in terms of greater uranium utilization efficiency, and that separating out the long-lived plutonium and other transuranics from spent fuel and fissioning them in fast reactors would greatly reduce the duration of the toxicity of radioactive waste. However, the history of efforts to deploy this system commercially in a number of countries over the last six decades has been one of economic and technical failure and, in some cases, was used to mask clandestine nuclear weapon development programs. Covering topics of significant public interest including nuclear safety, fuel storage, environmental impact and the spectre of nuclear terrorism, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the issue for nuclear engineers, policy analysts, government officials and the general public. "Frank von Hippel, Jungmin Kang, and Masafumi Takubo, three internationally renowned nuclear experts, have done a valuable service to the global community in putting together this book, which both historically and comprehensively covers the “plutonium age” as we know it today. They articulate in a succinct and clear manner their views on the dangers of a plutonium economy and advocate a ban on the separation of plutonium for use in the civilian fuel cycle in view of the high proliferation and nuclear-security risks and lack of economic justification." (Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency (1997-2009), Nobel Peace Prize (2005)) "The 1960s dream of a ‘plutonium economy’ has not delivered abundant low-cost energy, but instead has left the world a radioactive legacy of nuclear weapons proliferation and the real potential for nuclear terrorism. Kang, Takubo, and von Hippel explain with power and clarity what can be done to reduce these dangers. The governments of the remaining countries whose nuclear research and development establishments are still pursuing the plutonium dream should pay attention.” (Senator Edward Markey, a leader in the US nuclear-disarmament movement as a member of Congress since 1976) "The authors have done an invaluable service by putting together in one place the most coherent analysis of the risks associated with plutonium, and the most compelling argument for ending the practice of separating plutonium from spent fuel for any purpose. They have given us an easily accessible history of the evolution of thinking about the nuclear fuel cycle, the current realities of nuclear power around the world and, arguably most important, a clear alternative path to deal with the spent fuel arising from nuclear reactors for decades to centuries to come." (Robert Gallucci, Chief US negotiator with North Korea (1994); Dean, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (1996-2009); President, MacArthur Foundation (2009-2014))
Author: Kathryn L. Brown Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199855765 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 417
Book Description
In Plutopia, Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the stories of Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias--communities of nuclear families living in highly-subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment--equaling four Chernobyls--laying waste to hundreds of square miles and contaminating rivers, fields, forests, and food supplies. Because of the decades of secrecy, downwind and downriver neighbors of the plutonium plants had difficulty proving what they suspected, that the rash of illnesses, cancers, and birth defects in their communities were caused by the plants' radioactive emissions. Plutopia was successful because in its zoned-off isolation it appeared to deliver the promises of the American dream and Soviet communism; in reality, it concealed disasters that remain highly unstable and threatening today. -- From publisher description.
Author: Darleane C Hoffman Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 1783262443 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 563
Book Description
In this highly interesting book, three pioneering investigators provide an account of the discovery and investigation of the nuclear and chemical properties of the twenty presently known transuranium elements. The neutron irradiation of uranium led to the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 and then to the first transuranium element, neptunium (atomic number 93), in 1940. Plutonium (94) quickly followed and the next nine elements completed the actinide series by 1961. Investigation of the chemical properties of the actinides was followed more recently by chemical studies of the first three transactinides — rutherfordium (104), hahnium (105), and seaborgium (106). Recent discoveries have extended the known elements to 112./a
Author: Kristen Iversen Publisher: Crown ISBN: 0307955656 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 434
Book Description
“An intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security.”—Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks A shocking account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium. It's also a book about the destructive power of secrets--both family and government. Her father's hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats--best not to inquire too deeply into any of it. But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions and discovered some disturbing realities. Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book is both captivating and unnerving.
Author: Richard Rashke Publisher: Open Road Media ISBN: 1497639298 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 396
Book Description
On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood was driving on a deserted Oklahoma highway when her car crashed into a cement wall and she was killed. On the seat next to her were doctored quality-control negatives showing that her employer, Kerr-McGee, was manufacturing defective fuel rods filled with plutonium. She had recently discovered that more than forty pounds of plutonium were missing from the Kerr-McGee plant. Forty years later, her death is still steeped in mystery. Did she fall asleep before the accident, or did someone force her off the road? And what happened to the missing plutonium? The Killing of Karen Silkwood meticulously lays out the facts and encourages the readers to decide. Updated with the author’s chilling new introduction that discusses the similarities with Edward Snowden’s recent revelations, Silkwood’s story is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. For this updated edition, the author has added the latest information as to what happened to the various people involved in the Silkwood case and news of the lasting effects of this underreported piece of the history of the antinuclear movement.
Author: Jeremy Bernstein Publisher: UNSW Press ISBN: 1742230881 Category : Plutonium Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
One girl's search to find her father, using the internet, some boys and quite a lot of hairspray from debut YA novelist Ellie Phillips. Sadie Nathanson spends her life trying to survive the excruciating embarrassment of simply existing. It's hard enough being a bit of a shrinking violet within a loud and outspoken extended family, but the unexpected card from 'Dad' on her 15th birthday is the last straw. As 'Dad' was an Internet sperm-donor, it doesn't take a genius to work out that this is a bad joke, probably set up by her ex-best-friend Shonna. But it starts Sadie wondering - just who was her father? Is he the cause of her worry crinkle and wonky bum? What would happen if she tracked him down? So she decides to do just that. With help from her nerd cousin Billy, his friend Nodding Tony and a regular dose of 'Haironomics' (Sadie's own hairstyle-related philosophy system), they uncover a lot more than they bargain for... A story with wit, warmth and knicker-wetting embarrassment , Ellie Phillips is a vibrant new voice in teen fiction. Dad's, Geeks and Blue Haired Freaks is one of the most original books for young adults you'll ever read - perfect for girls moving on from Louise Rennison and Cathy Cassidy.
Author: Steve Olson
Author: Steve Olson
Author: Eileen Welsome
Author: John Zakour
Author: Frank von Hippel
Author: Glenn Theodore Seaborg
Author: Kathryn L. Brown
Author: Darleane C Hoffman
Author: Kristen Iversen
Author: Richard Rashke
Author: Jeremy Bernstein