The Manhattan Project: Books

The Smyth Report (officially Atomic Energy for Military Purposes) is the common name of an administrative history written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic bombs during World War II. The subtitle of the report is A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9.

The development of atomic bombs under the auspices of the U. S. Army's Manhattan Project during World War II is considered to be the outstanding news story of the twentieth century. In this book, a physicist and expert on the history of the Project presents a comprehensive overview of this momentous achievement. The first three chapters cover the history of nuclear physics from the discovery of radioactivity to the discovery of fission, and would be ideal for instructors of a sophomore-level "Modern Physics" course. Student-level exercises at the ends of the chapters are accompanied by answers. Chapter 7 covers the physics of first-generation fission weapons at a similar level, again accompanied by exercises and answers. For the interested layman and for non-science students and instructors, the book includes extensive qualitative material on the history, organization, implementation, and results of the Manhattan Project and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing missions. The reader also learns about the legacy of the Project as reflected in the current world stockpiles of nuclear weapons.  

The Manhattan Project, the United States Army’s program to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in World War II, was a pivotal event in human history. While thousands of articles and books have been published on various aspects of the Project, this is the first comprehensive single-volume history prepared by a specialist for curious readers without a scientific background.

The author presents a wide-ranging survey that not only tells the story of how the project was organized and carried out, but also introduces the leading personalities involved and gives qualitative but accurate descriptions of the underlying science and the engineering challenges. The technical points are illustrated by reader-friendly graphics.

The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth century. This book, prepared by a gifted teacher of physics, explores the challenges that faced the members of the Manhattan project. In doing so it gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the level of an upper-level undergraduate physics student. Details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, the fission process, how critical masses can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what factors complicate bomb design are covered. An extensive list of references and a number of problems for self-study are included. Links are given to several spreadsheets with which users can run many of the calculations for themselves.

The Argonne National Laboratory was a quintessential product of the cold war--from the atom bomb to the energy crisis. This book traces Argonne's constant concern with reactors, basic research, and its relationship with the midwestern science community and equally constant search for identity and mission as public and political priorities shifted. 51 photos.

Code-named the Manhattan Project, the detailed plans for developing an atomic bomb were impelled by urgency and shrouded in secrecy. Atomic Spaces tells the story of the project's three key sites and delivers a bold, graphic interpretation of these sites and the larger issues they represented.

The book interweaves the serious radiation safety issues against prevailing social issues and the fascinating history of test firings of nuclear weaponry. The role of key individuals in shaping policy is objectively demonstrated for both strategic defense as well as safety issues.

Leo Szilard, known in scientific circles as the "father of the atom bomb," has been overshadowed by such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller. Yet it was Szilard who first developed the idea of obtaining energy from nuclear chain reactions, and who first, with Einstein, pressed the U.S. government to begin atomic research and co-designed (with Fermi) the first nuclear reactor.

This New York Times bestseller tells the story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb.

This is the final volume of a history of the research work of Seaborg and associates in the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory, Chemistry Section C-1. The work was concerned with the development of chemical procedures for the extraction of plutonium, for the purification of plutonium and, in the later phases, for research on the isotopes of other heavy elements including other transuranium elements. The style of the history is that of a diary with footnotes giving additional information.

A non-technical narrative of the actual making of the first Atom bomb with an accent on the personal cases of the participants; and the industrial companies that built it.

The Manhattan Project: Science in the Second World War' is a short history of the origins and development of the American atomic bomb program during World War II. Beginning with the scientific developments of the pre-war years, the monograph details of the role of the United States government in conducting a secret, nationwide enterprise that took science from the laboratory and into combat with an entirely new type of weapon. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the immediate postwar period, the debate over the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, and the founding of the Atomic Energy Commission.

General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were the two men chiefly responsible for the building of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, code name "The Manhattan Project." As the ranking military officer in charge of marshalling men and material for what was to be the most ambitious, expensive engineering feat in history, it was General Groves who hired Oppenheimer, planned facilities that would extract the necessary enriched uranium, and saw to it that nothing interfered with the accelerated research and swift assembly of the weapon.This is his story of the political, logistical, and personal problems of this enormous undertaking which involved foreign governments, sensitive issues of press censorship, the construction of huge plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge, and a race to build the bomb before the Nazis got wind of it. The role of groves in the Manhattan Project has always been controversial. In his new introduction the noted physicist Edward Teller, who was there at Los Alamos, candidly assesses the general's contributions-and Oppenheimer's-while reflecting on the awesome legacy of their work.

This book chronicles on a day-to-day basis the astounding story of the discovery of plutonium and the feverish activities to unlock its secrets and enhance its productivity to the levels necessary for the building of an atomic bomb in World War II by its discoverer, Professor Glenn T. Seaborg. Seaborg, who shared the 1951 nobel Prize in Chemistry with his colleague Edwin T. McMillan, was a meticulous diarist whose detailed records of thousands of pages have been edited and supplied with accompanying notes by a trio consisting of a professional scientist with a strong interest in history and two professional historians of science. The work provides not only the step by step description of the scientific activities and the thought processes of Seaborg and his team throughout the war years, but also gives keen insight into the operation of the Manhattan District and of the scientists who played an important role in its functions.

This account details the author's involvement in the development of the first atomic bomb, his contributions to international control of atomic weapons and his role in the early development of atomic military doctrine during the Cold War. Nichols was wartime district engineer for the Manhattan Project, general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission and, for three decades, a consultant in the atomic power industry. A Pentagon official in 1952 who advocated the use of atomic weapons in Korea, he is in favor of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, andin the nonmilitary realmsupports the use of nuclear energy as less expensive, less dangerous and less damaging to the environment thanother methods of generating electricity. As a member of the official investigating committee, he offers an enlightening analysis of the Three Mile Island incident. Comparing it to the disaster at Chernobyl last year, Nichols flatly states that "there is nothing in the Chernobyl accident that gives cause to believe" that similar reactors in the U.S. "are less safe than we believed before the accident."

The public perception of the making of the atomic bomb is yet an image of the dramatic efforts of a few brilliant male scientists. However, the Manhattan Project was not just the work of a few and it was not just in Los Alamos. It was, in fact, a sprawling research and industrial enterprise that spanned the country from Hanford in Washington State to Oak Ridge in Tennessee, and the Met labs in Illinois. The Manhattan Project also included women in every capacity. During World War II the manpower shortages opened the laboratory doors to women and they embraced the opportunity to demonstrate that they, too, could do "creative science." Although women participated in all aspects of the Manhattan Project, their contributions are either omitted or only mentioned briefly in most histories of the project. It is this hidden story that is presented in Their Day in the Sun through interviews, written records, and photographs of the women who were physicists, chemists, mathematicians, biologists, and technicians in the labs.