Overview

The thrilling and terrifying seventy-year story--""kinetic, dramatic, and compulsively readable"" (Patchen Barss)--of the physicists that deciphered the atom and created the hydrogen bomb Although Henri Becquerel didn't know it at the time, he changed history in 1896 when he left photographic plates and some uranium rocks in a drawer. The rocks emitted something that exposed the plates: it was the first documented evidence of spontaneous radioactivity. So began one of the most exciting and consequential efforts humans have ever undertaken. As Frank Close recounts in Destroyer of Worlds, scientists confronting Becquerel's discovery had three questions: What was this phenomenon? Could it be a source of unlimited power? And (alas), could it be a weapon? Answering them was an epic journey of discovery, with Ernest Rutherford, Enrico Fermi, Irene Joliot-Curie, and many others jockeying to decipher the dance of particles in a decaying atom. And it was a terrifying journey as well, as Edward Teller and others pressed on from creating atom bombs to hydrogen bombs so powerful that they could destroy all life on earth. The deep history of the nuclear age has never before been recounted so vividly. Centered on an extraordinary cast of characters, Destroyer of Worlds charts the course of nuclear physics from simple curiosity to potential Armageddon.

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9781541605893

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""In Destroyer of Worlds, accomplished author Frank Close has written a genuine page-turner. Whisking readers from the fledgling days of radiation physics, in which X-rays and other phenomena defied scientific expectation, to the frightening era of the nuclear arms race, Close offers an epic work of true drama. Delightful anecdotes about the brilliant scientists involved in solving the atomic puzzle make this book a must. In Close's adept hands, the history of the atomic bomb comes alive.""--Paul Halpern, author of The Allure of the Multiverse

Author Information

Frank Close, OBE, FRS, is a particle physicist and an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Oxford. He is the author of over two dozen books, including Elusive, Half-Life, and The Infinity Puzzle. He lives near Oxford, UK.

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