The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb (Hardcover)

by Robert Serber (Author), Richard Rhodes (Editor, Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In April 1943, a young physicist named Robert Serber stood up before a small group of fellow scientists in a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and, as one attendee later recalled, began to speak in "a hazy, uncertain voice" about the project on which they would all be working. "The object," he said, "is to produce a practical military weapon in the form of a bomb in which the energy is released by a fast neutron chain reaction in one or more of the materials known to show nuclear fission." That mechanism, of course, was the atomic bomb, which a little more than two years later would be used against Japan.

In the following weeks, Serber touched on many themes, racing to an array of chalkboards to scribble complex formulas and equations. Among other things, he addressed how big a bomb would need to be in order to achieve critical mass--between 13.5 centimeters and 9 centimeters, he calculated--and what the probability of premature detonation might be. (It was, he concluded, always a danger.) At the end of the series, his lecture notes, classified as top secret, were gathered and printed for distribution to later cadres of scientists who came to work at Los Alamos. Years after the war they were declassified, and Serber, who died in May of 1997, took the opportunity to reflect on his work and the strange culture of the laboratory, adding postscripts and other commentary reproduced in the present edition.

Serber's book is an important document in the history of science, and remains one of the most accessible introductions to nuclear physics ever written. (On that note, those who worry that it is all too easy to find bomb-building instructions in the library or on the Web should rest assured: these lectures were tough for the greatest theoretical physicists of the time to follow.) It all makes for provocative reading. --Gregory McNamee

Product Description
The classified lectures that galvanized the Manhattan Project scientistswith annotations for the nonspecialist reader and an introduction by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. In March 1943 a group of young scientists, sequestered on a mesa near Santa Fe, attended a crash course in the new atomic physics. The lecturer was Robert Serber, J. Robert Oppenheimer's protg, and they learned that their job was to invent the world's first atomic bomb. Serber's lecture notes, nicknamed the "Los Alamos Primer," were mimeographed and passed from hand to hand, remaining classified for many years. They are published here for the first time, and now contemporary readers can see just how much was known and how terrifyingly much was unknown when the Manhattan Project began. Could this "gadget," based on the newly discovered principles of nuclear fission, really be designed and built? Could it be small enough and light enough for an airplane to carry? If it could be built, could it be controlled? Working with Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the development of the atomic bomb, Professor Serber has annotated original lecture notes with explanations of the physics terms for the nonspecialist. His preface, an informal memoir, vividly conveys the mingled excitement, uncertainty, and intensity felt by the Manhattan Project scientists. Rhodes's introduction provides a brief history of the development of atomic physics up to the day that Serber stood before his blackboard at Los Alamos. In this edition, The Los Alamos Primer finally emerges from the archives to give a new understanding of the very beginning of nuclear weapons. No seminar anywhere has had greater historical consequences.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 98 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (March 2, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520075765
• ISBN-13: 978-0520075764
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #283,979 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice source for fellow weapons nuts., April 28, 1999

By	Stephen M. St Onge "Stephen M. St. Onge" (Mpls, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In 1942, J. Robert Oppenheimer gathered six of the top theoretical physicists in the U.S. gathered in Berkeley to discuss how to go about making the first atomic bomb. One of them was Robert Serber. When Los Alamos opened in March, 1943, Serber gave a series of lectures based on that conference, so everyone would have a common frame of refernce for the work to come. They were then written up as Los Alamos publication #1, classified Top Secret, and given to every scientist joining the project. Here they are, with a nice introduction by Richard Rhodes, (author of THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB and DARK SUN: THE MAKING OF THE HYDROGEN BOMB; both recommended), and extensive annotations by Serber, covering (among other things) where they were right, were they were wrong, and how to discuss nuclear weapons in front of the contruction personal without them figuring out what you're talking about. Essential for anyone seriously interested in the Manhatten Project or The Bomb.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading--if you can handle the math., August 27, 1999

By A Customer

If you want to understand the bomb, there's no substitue for this book. I have a degree in physics with a decade of dust on it and found this presentation to be just within my understanding. If you don't know calculus and freshman physics, you're probably not going to understand it very well. If you do, it's fascinating.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, August 23, 2001

By	W. Needham "negoham" (Fort Thomas, KY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an incredible book. This is originally a compilation of Robert Serber's notes he gave to incoming scientists at Los Alamos in the 1940s, explaining to them the purpose of the Manhattan Project and the expected means by which they would achieve their goal. This particular copy, courtesy of the University of California Press, contains not only an introduction by Mr. Richard Rhodes (author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb - strongly recommended), but notes throughout the Primer itself by Robert Serber. It is fascinating to read comments on a document by the man who wrote it many years afterward. Be warned: This is NOT a how-to book, and does require some basic knowledge of calculus and physics. It is, however, unbelievably interesting, and worth the cost to add it to your collection.