Rating: 
Summary: 10 STARS! Essential reading
Review: - for anyone seriously interested in our nuclear heritage, weaponeering, or the NWEPS program. Gives INCREDIBLE insight as to the minds and directions these young physicists were going.This book is a must-read. Simple, concise, straightforward technically. You gotta read it, 'nuff said.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating!!!
Review: An amazing look inside the most secret US Government project of this century. From an outside point of view, it might be easy to assume the the scientists who developed the "bomb" had all the answers. As it turns out, they made plenty of mistakes, but most of them cancelled each other out or were just not important.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Excellent book, it takes a bit to stick with it, but the modern day excerpts/perspectives threaded into the book give it a good historical perspective. This is a good combo to go together with Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun".
Rating:
Summary: Required reading--if you can handle the math.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading--if you can handle the math.
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: A nice source for fellow weapons nuts.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good Outline
Review: Physics, science, and derivative technologies often develop so rapidly that the context of creation is lost. It is 1943 and we have been summoned to a remote mesa in New Mexico - a site isolated by distance and by time. We have been given a book and a mandate. How much was known and how much was challenge? Only this book tells.
Rating:
Summary: This book opens the door to the Los Alamos of 1943.
Review: Physics, science, and derivative technologies often develop so rapidly that the context of creation is lost. It is 1943 and we have been summoned to a remote mesa in New Mexico - a site isolated by distance and by time. We have been given a book and a mandate. How much was known and how much was challenge? Only this book tells.
Rating:
Summary: Good Outline
Review: The lecture notes are well annotated. The appendices are very helpful in understanding the urgency of the time. All in all, a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Great book on the physics of the bomb
Review: This is a truly exciting book for people with the desire to understand bomb physics. This book consists out of the original lecture notes from a series of seminars given in 1943 to the bomb scientists at the start of the Manhattan Project. These lecture notes are clearly annotated so that a layman can understand the bomb. Although the book discusses mainly the knowledge of 1943, the clear annotations of the author comments also on the advances since 1943. In this book you will learn to calculate the energy of an atomic bomb after already 5 pages using only one simple physical law (no, not Einstein!). When you are halfway in the book, you will understand the calculations of the critical mass. However to fully appreciate the book, you need to have a basic understanding of mathematics and physics. (it would be nice if you know what a differential equation is.) The book also contains several funny anekdotes which make it a truly astonishing reading.
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