Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 [Paperback]

Lillian Hoddeson (Author), Paul W. Henriksen (Author), Roger A. Meade (Author), Catherine L. Westfall (Author), Gordon Baym (Contributor), Richard Hewlett (Contributor), Alison Kerr (Contributor), Robert Penneman (Contributor), Leslie Redman (Contributor), Robert Seidel (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521541174 | ISBN-13: 978-0521541176 | Publication Date: February 12, 2004

This volume is a lucid and accurate history of the technical research that led to the first atomic bombs. The authors explore how the "critical assembly" of scientists, engineers, and military personnel at Los Alamos, responding to wartime deadlines, collaborated to create a new approach to large-scale research. The book opens with an introduction laying out major themes. After a synopsis of the prehistory of the bomb project, from the discovery of nuclear fission to the start of the Manhattan Engineer District, and an overview of the early materials program, the book examines the establishment of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the implosion and gun assembly programs, nuclear physics research, chemistry and metallurgy, explosives, uranium and plutonium development, confirmation of spontaneous fission in pile-produced plutonium, the thermonuclear bomb, critical assemblies, the Trinity test, and delivery of the combat weapons.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book fulfills its declared intention of providing an unprecedentedly full picture of all the actions and processes that were involved in bringing the bombs into existence." A. P. French, Nature

"Generally the presentation is clear and shows the care one expects of the four distinguished authors....The presentation can easily be followed by a scientific reader, and a non-scientist will get an interesting impression of the events." Rudolf Peierls, Science

"...provides detailed discussion of the many experiments that made up the project, including the implosion and gun assembly programs and the interesting consequences of spontaneous fission in reactor-produced plutonium and continues with details of the Trinity test and the actual dropping of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Recommended as an important addition to any college or university library." Choice

"...draw[s] upon a full lode of primary data and explore[s] for the first time the methodology by which researchers at Los Alamos succeeded in their wartime mission. The authors successfully avoid the "official history" pitfall by focusing on individual contributions to scientific and technological advances as opposed to the usual summary of divisional achievements...a well-documented, concise, chronological review of the combination of nuclear physics, chemistry and metallurgy that produced the first fission weapons...also examines the impact of Los Alamos upon the methodology of "big science" at national laboratories in the postwar era." Peter Neushal, Physics Today

"...this is the most technical account of Los Alamos's war years to appear in print...it considers Project Y's significant success in the use of 'big science' methodology....Critical Assembly is a masterful piece of technical writing accomplished by four authors in conjunction with six scientific advisors and editors....essential reading for technically-minded scholars interested in the history of Los Alamos, atomic research, and the development of modern research labs...." Richard Melzer, Western Historical Quarterly

"Critical Assembly has a lot to say about proliferation, much of it relevant to the present. Among other things, it provides a better foundation than ever for evaluating the problems facing countries (or terrorists) with nuclear ambitions." William Sweet, The Sciences

"...an indispensable book...." Barton C. Hacker, American Historical Review

"The book has the great merit of illustrating the depth and breadth of the scientific and technical problems faced by scientists in the laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico...This is an important book, for its insight into the enormously complex activities at Los alamos and, even more for its tantalizing survey of the implications of that research and development." Lawrence Badash, Journal of American History

"...the book certainly does bring together a lot of information that fleshes out the story." New Scientist

"...a notable and richly detailed work....Critical assembly sets a new standard for writings on wartime Los Alamos." Canadian Review of American Studies

Book Description

This volume studies the technical research that led to the first atomic bombs. The authors explore how the 'critical assembly' of scientists, engineers, and military personnel at Los Alamos, collaborated during World War II to create a new approach to research. Readers will find this book a crucial resource for understanding the underpinnings of contemporary science and technology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (February 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521541174
• ISBN-13: 978-0521541176
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,213,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Critical Assembly - an important reference book, January 22, 2007

By 

Peter Staric, PhD "Peter Staric, PhD (real name)" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 (Paperback)

Hoddeson, Henriksen, Meade & Westfal
Critical Assembly, ISBN 0-521-54117-4
Cambridge University Press, 2004

The title of the book has double meaning. It denotes the critical assembly of uranium 235, or plutonium 239 to start the chain reaction in an atomic bomb. But it also points to the »critical« assembly of numerous scientists, engineers, technicians and US Army personnel. The authors described how in a race with time all these experts were pursuing a single objective: to make an atomic bomb before the Nazi scientists could (supposedly) do it. Each of them was working in his or her special field, but only a handful of the privileged ones knew they were making an atomic bomb. The resolute, competent and mercilessly hard driving conductor of this huge orchestra was General Leslie R. Groves; its concertmaster was the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. To carry on this parable, the musicians - with rare exceptions - were obliged to play their scores with plugged ears. The conductor allowed them to know only their own score, because the whole composition named MED (Manhattan Engineering District) must not become known before the end of the war.

Though the fission was discovered in Germany (in the winter 1938/39) many Jewish scientists, being suppressed under Nazi-fascist reign, had left Europe as soon as they could. Among them A. Einstein, H. Bethe, R. Peierls, C. Fuchs (unfortunately also a soviet spy), N. Bohr, E. Teller, E. Wiegner, L. Szilard, E. Fermi and J. von Neumann, to name just the most important ones, arrived in the USA, where they contributed essentially to MED. When Groves began leading the project, it started advancing like an avalanche. What in 1939 was deemed to be a science fiction has become a real bomb within just six years.

To quench the thirst for information after the first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 6, 1945, Henry de Wolf Smyth of MED had prepared the book "Atomic Energy for Military Purposes". In it the most basic knowledge of how an atomic bomb works, as well as the enormous effort of MED to make it, was made public. But in its preface Groves attached a latch, telling us this is all, which can be released at the time; take it, do not ask any further questions - or else! Though many books published after this date had disclosed this or that, the book "Critical Assembly" has definitely broken that latch by disclosing many minute details, which were classified almost up to present time. In the book we learned how the scientists and other personnel, forced to work under the circumstances as outlined above, starting with micrograms of highly enriched uranium 235 and (up to then non existent) plutonium, have gradually extended the production up to kilogram quantities, determined the critical masses, avoided the nuclear explosion, and had managed to build two combat-ready weapons, which ended the war. The details will certainly be interesting for physicists as well as for engineers of chemistry, electronics, metallurgy, mechanics, ordnance and some others. For the layman the minute descriptions would be mostly too difficult to understand and the same might be valid even for professionals, if the matter lies too far outside of their specialty. But as a whole, the book is a great work of reference, with an enormous collection of interesting data, not known so far. On top of all this the book has 74 pages of references.

Unfortunately, the Department of Energy was too thorough when removing many "sensitive data" from the original text. Initially numerous details became gradually scarce when the discussion advanced toward August 1945. However, some common sense and simple calculations, based on the data published in many other books, magazines and films, converge to the following conclusions: Approximately 10 lbs (4.53 kg) of plutonium was used in the Fat Man and 70 lbs (31.75 kg) of 88 % enriched uranium 235 in the Little Boy bomb. In the uranium bomb the active material of about 3 critical masses was divided into 4 projectiles and one equilateral cylindrical target, with holes to fit the projectiles, placed inside the massive tungsten steel tamper. When three critical masses are assembled, the chain reaction starts spontaneously within about 0.1 s; so an initiator (with dangerously radioactive polonium 210) is basically not needed. Why was such data not mentioned in the book, which is full of less important details? Today nobody would waste so much precious, highly enriched uranium by not resorting to implosion, which needs less than one critical mass. On the other hand, the metallurgy of plutonium is a science in itself and so is the implosion. So why be so scared?

Peter Staric, PhD, BSEE
Ljubljana, Slovenia

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The first or last book to read on the atomic bomb, March 4, 2006

By 

Professeur Normal - See all my reviews

This review is from: Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945 (Paperback)

Depending of your technical proficiency.
Engineers or physicists will love it as an introduction to the Manhattan Project, and would subsequently read Rhodes excellent books to get a larger view.
Critical Assembly will allow non-technical people to understand the degree of complexity of this undertaking.
Being of the latter kind, I naturally read almost every other book about the subject, before resigning myself to buy this one. It's been a very pleasant surprise to find out that it's very readable. You will not get everything from the very detailled technical processes described but it's comforting to understand that at that time, they didn't either.
The main feeling throughout the book amounts to "oh, those people where in the dark most of the time, you could almost say it's been really incidental that they pulled it out in the end".
You precisely get how tedious this has been and how sparks of individual genius have made it possible at all.
The cover is pink, though.