The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor [Paperback]

John McPhee (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374515980 | ISBN-13: 978-0374515980 | Publication Date: April 1, 1994

Theodore Taylor was one of the most brilliant engineers of the nuclear age, but in his later years he became concerned with the possibility of an individual being able to construct a weapon of mass destruction on their own. McPhee tours American nuclear institutions with Taylor and shows us how close we are to terrorist attacks employing homemade nuclear weaponry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Theodore B. Taylor was among the most ingenious engineers of the nuclear age. He created the most powerful and the smallest nuclear weapons of his time (his masterpiece, the Davy Crockett, weighed in at a svelte 50 pounds) and also spearheaded efforts to create a nuclear-powered spacecraft. But in his later years, Taylor became increasingly concerned that compact and powerful bombs could be easily built not just by nations employing experts such as himself, but by single individuals with modest technical ability and perseverance. McPhee tours American nuclear installations with Taylor, and we are treated to a grim, eye-opening account of just how close we are to witnessing terrorist attacks using homemade nuclear weaponry. The Curve of Binding Energy is compelling writing about an urgently important topic.

Review

A book holding, with pretty good authority, that tens of thousands of people know enough about the bomb and are close enough to what they don't know to produce a bomb at home . . . The report's art at its difficult best."—Alvin Beam, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer

"Though dwellers in the nuclear age should ponder this book, as much for its intellectual excitement as for its warning."—Edmund Fuller, The Wall Street Journal

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Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374515980
• ISBN-13: 978-0374515980
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Nuclear Physics

More About the Author

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to his long association with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. The same year he published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are, with FSG, and soon followed with The Headmaster (1966), Oranges (1967), The Pine Barrens (1968), A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles (collection, 1969), The Crofter and the Laird (1969), Levels of the Game (1970), Encounters with the Archdruid (1972), The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (1973), The Curve of Binding Energy (1974), Pieces of the Frame (collection, 1975), and The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975). Both Encounters with the Archdruid and The Curve of Binding Energy were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most influential books of the last 30 years, January 5, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor (Paperback)

"The Curve of Binding Energy" is the landmark work that changed the American government's collective mind about the possibility of nuclear terrorism. It is fair to say that until nuclear weapon designer Ted Taylor sat down with John McPhee, and until McPhee's articles and book were published, the U.S. government believed that building a nuclear weapon required a regiment of top scientists and an effort on the scale of the Manhattan Project, something which could only be done by major industrialized powers (despite China).

After "Curve" was published, the government accepted the idea that terrorists could build nuclear devices, given only that they had access to fissile material and shifted gears almost immediately, an occurrence as rare as its effects were crucial. Taylor demonstrated that a few competent people mining the scientific literature could do the job. Many millions of dollars, pounds, francs, euros and rubles have been spent by many governments since publication of "Curve" to ensure that no terrorist ever gets his hands on plutonium or enriched uranium, and we are all safer as a result.

The book is, of course, incredibly readable and compelling. One would not expect less from the foremost prose stylist in the United States.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far ahead of its time. Fascinating and perhaps prophetic, December 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor (Paperback)

I read this book in 1975 and have subsequently reread it several times. The possibilities imagined in this book haven't yet come to pass, mainly, I think, because Ted Taylor is a genius and the terrorists are actually pretty stupid. Dr. Taylor, or someone like him, could build a home-made bomb that would make the events of 9/11 look like a tea party. However, the people motivated to actually carry out events like 9/11 are fortunately not so technically inclined.

The book spells out in chilling detail how it is actually pretty simple to put together an atomic bomb that could rival a Hiroshima-class explosion, IF, and it is a big IF, you have enriched uranium or plutonium.

The book does into enough detail to prove the point that bomb construction is fairly simple, but it contains several deliberate mistakes (one in chemistry and one in physics, that I could find) that keep this book from being a "blueprint" for bomb construction.

Like "The Hot Zone" about ebolla, this book may keep you awake nights if you read it carefully and really think about the implications.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WAAY ahead of his time, September 24, 2001

By 

Shawn Hughes "still prefers paper to pdf" (near Oak Ridge, Tenn.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor (Hardcover)

One of the best and brightest, through Mr. McPhee's able penmanship, Mr. Taylor gives a guided tour of the (then) current state-of-the-art. Chock full of facts, figures and references, all verifiable. With the current glut of so-called 'expert' writers in this field, this book is one of the better uses of a tree on this subject ;O). I guarantee that any person interested in the nuclear weapons stockpile-to-target sequence will find the book an EXCELLENT buy.