Big Science; Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. First Simon & Schuster Hardcover Edition. Hardcover. x, [2], 512, [2] pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Bibliography, Notes, and Index. Two small tears to rear dust jacket. Black mark on bottom edge. Michael A. Hiltzik (born November 9, 1952) is an American columnist and reporter. In 1999, he won a beat reporting Pulitzer Prize for co-writing a series of articles about corruption in the music industry with Chuck Philips. He won two Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. Ernest O. Lawrence's invention of the cyclotron revolutionized nuclear physics, and ultimately would transform everything about how science was done. Lawrence would win the Nobel Prize in physics and would become the confidant of presidents and leaders of industry. He would become deeply involved in the Manhattan Project that produced the atomic bomb, and influence the decision to appoint Robert Oppenheimer as head of the bomb project in Los Alamos. He advocated for the hydrogen bomb, but also urge an end to the arms race. Since the 1930s, the scale of scientific endeavor has grown exponentially. The first particle accelerator could be held in its creator's lap, while its successor grew to seventeen miles in circumference and cost ten billion dollars. We have invented the atomic bomb, put man on the moon, and probed the inner workings of nature at the scale of subatomic particles--all the result of Big Science, the model of industrial-scale research paid for by governments, departments of defense, and corporations that has driven the great scientific projects of our time. The birth of Big Science can be traced nearly nine decades ago in Berkeley, California, when a young scientist with a talent for physics declared, "I'm going to be famous " His name was Ernest Orlando Lawrence. His invention, the cyclotron, would revolutionize nuclear physics, but that was only the beginning of its impact, which would be felt in academia, industry, and international politics. It was the beginning of Big Science. Condition: Very good / Good.
Keywords: Ernest Lawrence, Nuclear Physics, Manhattan Project, Atomic Bomb, Hydrogen Bomb, Luis Alvarez, Atomic Energy Commission, Arthur Compton, James Conant, Cyclotron, Leslie Groves, Milton Livingston, Edwin McMillan, Robert Oppenheimer, Glenn Seaborg, Edw
ISBN: 9781451675757
[Book #78924]
Price: $35.00