Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age (Macsci)

257 Pages·2009·1.36 MB·English

by  Amir D. Aczel

01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 1
U R A N I U M
W A R S
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 2
ALSO BY AMIR D. ACZEL
Fermat’s Last Theorem
Mystery of the Aleph:
Mathematics, the Kabbalah,
and the Search for Infinity
God’s Equation:
Einstein, Relativity, and
the Expanding Universe
Probability 1
Entanglement:
The Greatest Mystery in Physics
Descartes’s Secret Notebook
The Artist and the Mathematician
Chance
Pendulum:
Léon Foucault and
the Triumph of Science
The Jesuit and the Skull
The Cave and the Cathedral
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 3
U R A N I U M
W A R S
THE SCIENTIFIC RIVALRY THAT
CREATED THE NUCLEAR AGE
A M I R D.
A C Z E L
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 4
URANIUMWARS
Copyright © Amir D. Aczel, 2009.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978-0-230-61374-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aczel, Amir D.
Uranium wars : the scientific rivalry that created the nuclear age /
by Amir D. Aczel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-230-61374-4
1. Nuclear weapons—Research—History—20th century. 2. Nuclear
physics—Research—History—20th century. 3. Nuclear energy—
Research—History—20th century. 4. Science and state—History—20th
century. 5. Uranium as fuel—History—20th century. I. Title.
QC773.A1A28 2009
621.4809—dc22
2009007276
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre
First edition: September, 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 5
For Debra
This page intentionally left blank
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 7
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments 9
Preface 11
Cast of Characters 15
A Note on Nomenclature 19
Glossary of Atomic Terms 21
Introduction: The Blinding Light 23
1. Physics and Uranium 28
2. On the Trail of the Nucleus 37
3. Lise Meitner 52
4. The Meitner-Hahn Discovery 61
5. Enrico Fermi 74
6. The Rome Experiments 88
7. The Events of 1938 98
8. Christmas 1938 104
9. The Heisenberg Menace 114
10. Chain Reaction 123
11. The Nazi Nuclear Machine 131
12. Copenhagen 143
13. The Moment of Truth 153
14. Building the Bomb 162
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 8
15. The Decision to Use the Bomb 178
16. Evidence from a Spying Operation 192
17. The Cold War 203
18. Uranium’s Future 211
Notes 225
References 237
Index 240
Eight pages of photographs appear between pages 130 and 131.
01 aczel fm REV:03 wasik ch1 5/27/09 9:58 AM Page 9
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T
his work was partially supported by a grant-in-aid from the
Friends of the Center for History of Physics, American Insti-
tute of Physics, and I am very pleased to acknowledge this help
with gratitude. I am grateful to the American Institute of Physics’
Niels Bohr Library and Archive, its former director, Spencer Weart, its
new director, Gregory Good, and its librarians—especially Melanie
Brown, Scott Prouty, Jennifer Sullivan, and Julie Gass—for the help
they gave me on my research stay at the Niels Bohr Library in No-
vember 2008.
I thank the administration of the National Security Archive at
George Washington University for permission to reprint and quote
from many declassified “Top Secret” and “Ultra Top Secret” docu-
ments in the archive.
I am grateful to the Niels Bohr Archive in Copenhagen for per-
mission to quote from Bohr’s unsent letters to Heisenberg.
I thank Professor Alfred I. Tauber, director of the Center for the
Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University, for his con-
tinuing support and interest in my research. I thank the center’s per-
sonnel, and the librarians at Boston University, for their help in my
work researching this book.
Many thanks to my friend and agent, Albert Zuckerman, for his
brilliant ideas that shaped this book, and I am indebted to his staff at