Peace and War

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating story by a nuclear pioneer
Review: Robert Serber was J. Robert Oppenheimer's student, friend, and first recruit for the atomic bomb laboratory at Los Alamos. Serber recounts this, as well as the most of the rest of his life, in an engaging informal style. I wish he'd been a little more forthcoming about his and Oppenheimer's politics, but even the little bit he tells adds vital new information to these subjects. He also recaptures how the A-bomb project looked to people who were AT WAR, who actually had to choose between killing the enemy and letting their countrymen be killed. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating story by a nuclear pioneer
Review: Robert Serber was J. Robert Oppenheimer's student, friend, and first recruit for the atomic bomb laboratory at Los Alamos. Serber recounts this, as well as the most of the rest of his life, in an engaging informal style. I wish he'd been a little more forthcoming about his and Oppenheimer's politics, but even the little bit he tells adds vital new information to these subjects. He also recaptures how the A-bomb project looked to people who were AT WAR, who actually had to choose between killing the enemy and letting their countrymen be killed. Highly Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful, readable, 1st-hand account of 20th-C. physics.
Review: Serber, one of the most important and influential physicists of this century, tells it all. His perceptive and candid accounts of Los Alamos, Hiroshima, and US physics before and after WWII is amongst the best I have ever read. Of particular interest are a series of transcribed letters Serber and his wife exchanged while Serber was leading a group to Japan to study the effects of the bombs. These original accounts of his first impressions, untempered by decades of reflection, alone make this book worth reading. Any scientist, historian or well-read person will enjoy and learn from Serber's reminiscences.