<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Adventures in the Mind
Review: Adventures in the Atomic Age is a remarkably friendly book. It is Glenn Seaborg's autobiography (completed after his death by his son). He helped develop the atom bomb, won the Nobel Prize and had an element named after him and those are only a few of his many achievements. He also chaired the Atomic Energy Commission, was chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley and was a professor whenever there was a lull in his career. He worked to make science interesting and accessible to the public, especially to students. An idea of how well he succeeded is shown by the fact that this book actually makes the science of the atom bomb intelligible. This is a book that can be read on many levels. It can be simply a history of the atomic age for he was there at the very beginning. It can be a history of the changing political scene during his life. It can also be read simply as the history of a thoroughly decent person. Glenn Seaborg comes across as a nice guy, the sort of person you would want as a next door neighbor, and would definitely want as a teacher.
Rating:
Summary: A very human and humanizing book about Seaborg
Review: I liked this book a lot. It reminded me so much of some projects I have worked on in terms of the happenstance and there you are. Seaborg was a kind, sane and good person, and it really comes across in this book. Such a contrast to so many today, and the politics have become so impenetrable these days. The UC system was nearly new then, it made me really feel how California was bubbling with new and great possibilities 70-50 years ago. I wish I had met the man. I hope I can be somewhere near as good a man as he was.
Rating: 
Summary: From someone in the middle of it.
Review: This was a very interesting book. You got to learn about the guy who was first able to separate plutonium not just a small bit at a time but on an industrial scale at Hanford. The story got me interested in Lawerence and the cyclotron and how some of the newer elements were used like the one they use in smoke detectors. He was an interesting character who tried to work within the system. By the end of the story you can see his democratic leanings because none of the Republican seem to know what they were doing but aside from that it is an interesting story which made me want to know more about nuclear power. I never knew about all the peaceful uses they tried that were explained in this book. This book made me want to know more of what actually happened which is why I read the new Rickover book by Frances Ducan. In his book he mentions Seaborg several times. The book has it's funny parts like when he was chancellor of Berkley how the male students council came to him and ask him to turn one of the dorms into a brothel so the guys could stay on campus and still relief some stress. Seaborg wore a lot of hats and his story coinsides with the times that he lived. This is shown by how he felt about working on the bomb during World War II. At the time Germany had taken most of Europe and Japan was all over China and the Pacific and if he didn't do something to stop them, they would rule the world. It made it seem less of a moral choice than one of survival.
<< 1 >>
| 
