The Modern Age, Technically and Spiritually

Richard Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb chronicles a period unique in world history, an age when brilliant minds in the service of numerous countries collaborated to create the most destructive weaponry we've yet seen, but at the same time made discoveries that advanced ideas we now take for granted. It's a gripping adventure of scientific discovery, triumph and disappointment in the careers of the people who contributed to the work that climaxed in the release of a bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, exactly fifty-five years before this review was written, and opened a age in which humanity's capacity for self-destruction has compelled it to examine its existing prejudices and long-standing enmities and decide whether they're really worth the consequences our technological development has made possible.

This review is part of a write-off organized by erik_kosberg that also involves endora60 and nita. I encourage you to check out their insights on this book as well.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb weighs in at an impressive 886 pages, complete with footnotes and acknowledgements, and it's certainly not a beach read. It's a survey of atomic physics that begins by telling the story of the pioneering work of Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford and Albert Einstein at the turn of the last century, and doesn't spare us the technical details that Rhodes must have been aware might deter some readers. Previous surveys I've read have largely treated the Manhattan Project and its aftermath; Rhodes returns to the beginning of the now-familiar chemistry of quantum mechanics, explaining how Bohr evolved the theory of atomic "shells," verified empirically by Harry Moseley (who tragically fell at Gallipoli), and how Enrico Fermi, Glenn Seaborg and a number of other researchers in the course of their work realized that their discoveries presented the potential for developing weapons unprecedented in their destructiveness and impact upon a war that might well have persisted long beyond 1945 or ended very differently if not for the "brain drain" Germany endured, and the feverish Western efforts at atomic development that were immeasurably aided by the work of its emigrants.

This is a human drama, like any other effort, and it's treated that way. Rhodes presents the development of J. Robert Oppenheimer into a confident, respected physicist and the progress of Ernest Rutherford from a New Zealand farm to ultimate heights of success at Cambridge. But he gives us as well a detailed treatment of the ethical problems the discoveries they made presented for these scientists, and shows us these moral questions were far from unprecedented, as when he tells us of Fritz Haber, a chemist who worked to develop "mustard gas":

It was more than Fritz Haber's wife could bear... She asked, argued, finally adamantly demanded that her husband abandon gas work. Haber told her what he had told [Otto] Hahn... that a scientist belongs to the world in times of peace but to his country in times of war. Then he stormed out to supervise a gas attack on the Eastern Front. Dr. Clara Immerwear Haber committed suicide the same night.

Rhodes documents the struggles with the implications of atomic research that were only intensified as the construction of a weapon became a possibility, and shows us how those engaged in that research reacted introspectively and reflectively to their success. We're told that Oppenheimer chose the name "Trinity" for a test site because he was inspired by a Donne poem:

"I did suggest it," Oppenheimer responded... "Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love. From it a quotation:

As West and East
In all flatt Maps - and I am one - are one,
So death doth touch the Resurrection."

The more clinical details of the political decision to use the atomic bomb are rendered, and we're told of the reactions of the scientists to their creation. The book essentially encompasses a period that ends with the invention of the hydrogen bomb in the late 1940's, and follows the personalities crucial to the application of atomic energy to wartime purposes through the Soviet Union's acquisition of that technology at the beginning of the Fifties.

There are technical explanations and diagrams here that will tax a less-than-attentive reader, but anyone willing to invest time and attention will find Rhodes' treatment of a seemingly difficult subject both interesting and comprehensive. He doesn't shy away from discussions of topics as seemingly esoteric as the use of prisms and atom smashers to determine the structure of elements, or the exact composition of the Manhattan Project pile at the University of Chicago. Nor does he spare us the details surrounding the researchers' contracts with universities or governments, which are crucial to an understanding of the effort which produced the explosion that 6th of August. But he makes these topics and details clear and fascinating, and evinces an ability for making seemingly esoteric material understandable to those with little scientific background.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a detailed, yet highly readable treatment of the technical research that created the explosive responsible for transforming the world's conception of war. In writing it, Rhodes has not only given us an insight into the personalities responsible for this creation, but the larger tale of the intersection in our century of scientific discovery, personal ambition and frequent self-doubt, and related the large and small points of seemingly inevitable progress that, as always, seems to have its own will that expresses itself through our efforts as much as it's a product of the minds of people of unquestioned, if often obscure, genius.