This book was both my most fascinating and tortuous read in recent memory, it's like trying to take a drink from a firehose. I'm blown away by Richard Rhodes and his ability to effortlessly master three incredibly difficult disciplines: science writing, history writing, and character writing. Rarely will you find a book that masters any one of these. Rhodes managed to master all three simultaneously. Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics. Chemists and physicists in the early 1900s tried to develop a model of the atom. In 1911, Ernest Rutherford found the atomic nucleus. Niels Bohr in 1913, developed a model of the atom with electrons in fixed atomic orbitals around the nucleus. In 1925, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascal Jordan developed their theory of matrix mechanics, followed by Erwin Schrödinger’s wave equation. Then in 1926, Wolfgang Pauli developed a three dimensional map of the atomic orbitals around the nucleus.

The latter portions of the book are dominated – unsurprisingly – by the “American Prometheus” himself, Oppenheimer. He was a brilliant man in his own right, but his main contribution to the Manhattan Project was to manage the greatest collection of scientific minds perhaps ever gathered in one place.As soon as nuclear fission was discovered - only in December of 1938 - nuclear scientists all started frantic research projects, discovering a vast source of energy, new elements, and more potent radioactive sources. With this, the thought of an atomic bomb occurred to everyone - and Leo Szilard convinced the US to launch a secret program to get the bomb before Hitler did. The scientists new that the bomb was inevitable - but thought that governments would use it to end all wars, because they would realize that this could destroy the world.

Rhodes does an excellent job highlighting the various scientific advancements that finally led to the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. For a historical context to explain the urgency felt by the participants, he explains the history of the Jewish people in Europe and the rise of Hitler in Germany. Adding on is the fear that Germany would develop the bomb first and later that Japan would refuse to surrender, producing a constant pressure to continue.There's some fantastic profiles of truly great scientists in this book and it's not one of those pop science or psuedo science books where every person is some quirky character described by a few flippant physical characteristics. I probably learned the most about Fermi from this book; he is an absolute giant. I came across Robert Wilson's take on Fermi in another book. On the surface, this is another book about the Manhattan Project, about the process it took to create the atomic bomb, and about the consequences. However, when you dive deeper you will learn that there is much more to it. You get to meet some of the key players in this entire operation like Oppie but there are also a few intriguing appearances as well. This includes Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and a few more. Deep Behind the Scenes This is a sort of a Cliff Notes or Reader's Digest compilation of atomic history texts. Richard Rhodes writes the introduction, and at no point does he suggest why you need this book if you've already read his far more comprehensive The Making Of The Atomic Bomb - he probably thinks you don't. If I hadn't just come through it, I probably would have been a bit perplexed. A lot of the key figures remain sketchy, their motivations shadowy, their processes vague. Nevertheless, I learned a great deal from this book. And will read more about it from shorter tomes. It is widely known that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945 effectively ended the Second World War and brought an allied victory. But the details of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” as they were called, and the stories surrounding them are fascinating. There are many different aspects to the atomic bombs, from their creation to their destruction. There’s the Manhattan Project and Robert Oppenheimer in the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. And the harrowing tale of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis as it returned home after delivering the bombs, where all but 900 men were lost to torpedoes and sharks. (Remember Quint’s story in Jaws? This is the boat he tells a fictional tale about.)

This book is one of the most unique and comprehensive tomes on the atomic bomb you will find anywhere. The early parts of the book on nuclear physics history may seem daunting but are explained in concise and digestible sections. It then examines the Nazi's rise to power and the antisemitism and issues during World War II. Because of this, many of the scientists escaped Germany and were able to help the U.S. effort.Beverly Willis, co-founder of the National Building Museum and Founding Trustee of the Museum, Dies A crew member of his wrote,however,that he could not get those few minutes of horror out of his mind,if he lived a hundred years. Knowing that he'd need the right man to run the operation, he hired Oppenheimer, who was a man born to wealthy Jewish parents and used to high society, to assemble the scientific team. Kunetka explores how these two men interacted and balanced the demands of their positions while working to develop the first atomic bomb.