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Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Sharon Weinberger (Author)
2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Pentagon's fascination with fringe science is old news, writes veteran defense reporter Weinberger in this incisive study, but the Bush administration has pushed it to new levels of wackiness. After reviewing our government's pursuit of antimatter weapons, psychics and telepathy, she focuses on a "nuclear hand grenade" that may cost billions and seems certain to fail. Before the War on Terror and the avalanche of government money for advanced new weapons, few paid attention to physicists who said they could harness the energy of unstable atomic nuclei, or "isomers," through a wildly expensive process involving atomic reactors. But in recent years, a group of fringe scientists aided by defense industry insiders has convinced the Pentagon that America's post-9/11 survival depends on developing an isomer bomb. While proponents compare it to the Manhattan Project, opponents point out that independent researchers have not been able to duplicate the results attained by isomer enthusiasts, and that many assumptions behind the bomb contradict the laws of physics. Though Congress canceled isomer bomb development in 2004, the Department of Energy found $5 million to continue the research. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

That the Pentagon wastes billions of dollars on outmoded or ineffective weaponry has been old news for decades, but Weinberger offers a new dimension. Editor of the magazine Defense Technology International, Weinberger has previously worked for the U.S. State Department and the Systems Planning Corporation, and she uses her insider's understanding to expose the flaws in weapons design through a case study built around a device called a hafnium bomb. The idea for a handheld weapon with the explosive power of a nuclear bomb begins in the mind of a pseudoscientist who makes more headway with the Pentagon than seems logical. "All it took," Weinberger notes, "was a used dental X-ray, a few die-hard supporters, some farfetched claims of a new arms race, and the Pentagon thought it was on its way to the next superbomb." The episode seems outlandish enough to be satire, but alas, it's true to life. Weinberger injects humor into the saga, but comedy pales in light of the potentially deadly nature of the proposed weapon. Steve Weinberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Nation Books (May 21, 2007)
  • ISBN-10: 156858329X
  • ASIN: B001G8WQ2K
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,195,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Sharon Weinberger
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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IN THE SUMMER of 2002, Tony Tether, the head of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was having a good day. Read the first page
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Los Alamos, United States, Department of Energy, Carl Collins, Star Wars, Martin Stickley, New Mexico, Soviet Union, Hill Roberts, Nobel Prize, Cold War, James Carroll, Manhattan Project, State Department, William Herrmannsfeldt, Tony Tether, Defense Department, Donald Gemmell, Eastern Europe, Nancy Ries, Peter Zimmerman, American Physical Society, Ehsan Khan, Fred Ambrose, Mickey Mouse
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Customer Reviews

30 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.7 out of 5 stars (30 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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58 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A Success of Marketing, But Little Else, July 28, 2006
This review is from: Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld (Hardcover)
I bought the book "Imaginary Weapons" hoping to have an entertaining read on some of the less plausible ideas and concepts that are thrown around the "Pentagon's Scientific Underworld." I'm very interested in both science and technology, so I was also interested to hear the "science" behind these prospective weapons and the case studies on them.

Sadly, the book matched neither the title nor my expectations. In reality, the book focuses exclusively on "isomer weapons" and the "hafnium bomb," or, I should say, the in-squabbling that takes place between fringe scientists over these ideas. The book is less of a study, less of a technological focus and more of a "he said, she said" soap opera of the scientific world, with a narrow focus to those scientists in the isomer/hafnium field.

If you're interested in the history of isomer/halfium research, then this may be a good read, otherwise, I advise you look elsewhere.
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63 of 71 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Trivial Pursuit, August 1, 2006
By Howard (Tampa, FL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld (Hardcover)
Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger is an extremely disappointing book. Promos claimed it would be a broad investigation of the unconventional technologies evaluated by the DOD. What it turns out to be is a pitifully narrow view of a single trivial issue about whether the energy stored in a peculiar isomer form in Hafnium can be useful or not. Having no technical competence, the author seems only able to spend the 300 pages producing an immature view of hypothetical squabbling between characters portrayed in a totally unconvincing style. By the end of the book it is clear that the analysis reported in the Product Forum got it right. Imaginary Weapons is fiction concocted from interviews with sources that have no credibility or corroboration. What a waste of $10.10!
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37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your time., November 3, 2006
This review is from: Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld (Hardcover)
I saw the author plugging the book on The Daily Show and she was quite engaging and the book sounded like a good read. But after reading the book I can't recommend it. It was very dry and reminded me of a college term paper that was very much padded for length. There is one central story and it's beaten to death over and over. This book would have made a very interesting magazine article, no doubt about that, but as a book there just wasn't enough of a story. And one other thing...the book is loaded with TYPOS!! Very distracting...I'd say I noticed six or seven typos and generally you shouldn't find ANY.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent portrayal of Defense Department nutjobs
Ms. Weinberg's book is criticized in the one-star reviews as left-wing propaganda.
Well, let's get one thing straight: there are two distinct styles of investigative... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Howard Newcombe

2.0 out of 5 stars Wow, I want my $2 back.
I don't know. This book is very hard to read. I struggled through it, but I'm not sure why. It doesn't seem to follow a cohesive narrative. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Phil Laco

2.0 out of 5 stars Confusing narrative
It's a really interesting story, and if it had been unraveled chronologically, it would have made much more sense. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Charles Hope

2.0 out of 5 stars Painfully Boring
Like many other readers, I was interested in reading this book based on two things: the title and the author's interview on The Daily Show. Read more
Published on June 19, 2008 by Russell E. Ruszkowski

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, an atypical but not unique project account
This book is in some ways unfair in its ridicule of the Defense Department's establishment, DARPA in particular. Read more
Published on June 16, 2007 by Victor A. Vyssotsky

1.0 out of 5 stars Axe to Grind
The author has some serious issues she needs to deal with. You don't actually learn anything by reading a book like this. Read more
Published on May 10, 2007 by Sean Malowney

2.0 out of 5 stars just ok
the subject matter was interesting
but i found the writer's attempts to create imagery and storytelling to be a little contrived and kind of a distraction. Read more
Published on January 9, 2007 by Melanie T. Turner

3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story but bad explanation of the physics
This book details the history of a project aimed at liberating the energy held in an excited energy level, an isomer, of the hafnium-178 nucleus. Read more
Published on November 13, 2006 by Paul Moskowitz

1.0 out of 5 stars Just awful!!
I was hoping this would be a run down of declassified weapons projects that didn't make the cut or lost funding or just didn't work. NOPE! Read more
Published on November 9, 2006 by H. Kimble

5.0 out of 5 stars More than idea alone.
Susan Weinberger is a defense journalist and first heard about isomer weapons at a casual defense briefing in Washington - a device no bigger than a hand grenade with the punch of... Read more
Published on November 6, 2006 by Midwest Book Review

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