JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I kept this book mainly for the cover art, though the writer–William L. Laurence–did a commendable job of looking at the Hell Bomb (the hydrogen bomb) and provided a useful chronology at the end of the book for attempts at nuclear control.  Laurence was a science writer for the New York Times and was also the official historian of the Manhattan Project–he was also about the first person to write for a mass audience on the coming of what he would eventually coin “the atomic age” in a 1940 NYT article¹.  

The book is agile but also a very slight read with not much detail, published without a single footnote, and without a bibliography, sort of like a long newspaper article.  One thing is for sure though–he was right about the “hell” part. 

Notes: 

1. “Vast Power Source in Atomic Energy”. New York Times. May 5, 1940

Here’s an interesting article on the popular reception of the possibilities of atomic power if not an atomic weapon, found in the NY Times, 1938-1940:  http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2013/11/26/excitement-about-u-235-as-coal-competitor-circa-1939-1940/