In the Shadow of the Bomb
Regular price
€46.99
A01=S. S. Schweber
Academic freedom
Adviser
Atomic energy
Author_S. S. Schweber
Bibliography
Bildung
Calculation
Career
Category=DNBT
Category=JWMN
Category=PDX
Category=PH
Cornell University
Cosmic ray
Curtis LeMay
David Bohm
Disarmament
Edward Condon
Edward Teller
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
Eugene Wigner
Evelyn Fox Keller
Experimental physics
Frank Oppenheimer
Freeman Dyson
George Gamow
Hans Bethe
Hartland Snyder
House Un-American Activities Committee
Isidor Isaac Rabi
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Jean Tatlock
Jed Buchwald
Jews
John Dewey
Julian Schwinger
Kenneth Bainbridge
Lecture
Lev Landau
Literature
McCarthyism
Melba Phillips
Modernity
Morality
National security
Nazi Germany
Niels Bohr
Nobel Prize
Nuclear arms race
Nuclear weapon
Paul Forman
Philip Morrison
Philosophy
Physicist
Politics
President's Science Advisory Committee
Princeton University Press
Quantum mechanics
Radiation Laboratory (MIT)
Richard Feynman
Robert Bacher
Rudolf Peierls
Science
Scientist
Seminar
Soviet Union
Suggestion
Theoretical physics
Thermonuclear weapon
Totalitarianism
University of Washington
Victor Weisskopf
Wai Chee Dimock
Willis Lamb
Wolfgang Pauli
World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9780691127859
- Weight: 397g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 07 Jan 2007
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
In the Shadow of the Bomb narrates how two charismatic, exceptionally talented physicists--J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hans A. Bethe--came to terms with the nuclear weapons they helped to create. In 1945, the United States dropped the bomb, and physicists were forced to contemplate disquieting questions about their roles and responsibilities. When the Cold War followed, they were confronted with political demands for their loyalty and McCarthyism's threats to academic freedom. By examining how Oppenheimer and Bethe--two men with similar backgrounds but divergent aspirations and characters--struggled with these moral dilemmas, one of our foremost historians of physics tells the story of modern physics, the development of atomic weapons, and the Cold War. Oppenheimer and Bethe led parallel lives. Both received liberal educations that emphasized moral as well as intellectual growth. Both were outstanding theoreticians who worked on the atom bomb at Los Alamos. Both advised the government on nuclear issues, and both resisted the development of the hydrogen bomb.
Both were, in their youth, sympathetic to liberal causes, and both were later called to defend the United States against Soviet communism and colleagues against anti-Communist crusaders. Finally, both prized scientific community as a salve to the apparent failure of Enlightenment values. Yet, their responses to the use of the atom bomb, the testing of the hydrogen bomb, and the treachery of domestic politics differed markedly. Bethe, who drew confidence from scientific achievement and integration into the physics community, preserved a deep integrity. By accepting a modest role, he continued to influence policy and contributed to the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963. In contrast, Oppenheimer first embodied a new scientific persona--the scientist who creates knowledge and technology affecting all humanity and boldly addresses their impact--and then could not carry its burden. His desire to retain insider status, combined with his isolation from creative work and collegial scientific community, led him to compromise principles and, ironically, to lose prestige and fall victim to other insiders.
Schweber draws on his vast knowledge of science and its history--in addition to his unique access to the personalities involved--to tell a tale of two men that will enthrall readers interested in science, history, and the lives and minds of great thinkers.
Silvan S. Schweber is Professor Emeritus of Physics and Richard Koret Professor in the History of Ideas at Brandeis University and an Associate in Harvard's Department of the History of Science. He obtained a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Princeton in 1952, and later became a historian of science. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and author of "Introduction to Relativistic Quantum Field Theory" and "QED and the Men Who Made It" (Princeton).
