Title: The nuclear muse : literature, physics, and the first atomic bombs /
Authors: Canaday, John, 1961-
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press,
Year: 2000
Subjects: Nuclear energy History; Atomic bomb.; Nuclear physics in literature.
Abstract: "John Canaday analyzes a variety of texts produced by physicists before, during, and after the Second World War, including Niels Bohr's "The Quantum Postulate"; the Blegdamsvej Faust, a parody of Goethe's Faust that cast physicists as its principle characters; The Los Alamos Primer, the technical lectures used for training at Los Alamos; scientists' descriptions of their work and of the Trinity test; and Leo Szilard's post-war novella, The Voice of the Dolphins." -- Publisher's description
Contents: Introduction: Literature, physics, and the first atomic bombs -- "What we can say about nature": metaphor, analogy, and the birth of subatomic physics -- "Wandering on new paths": Niels Bohr's complementarity principle -- "The sense of option in knowledge": the Blegdamsvej Faust and quantum mechanics -- The Los Alamos primer: the uses of fiction in founding a laboratory -- A city on "the hill": decoding life at Los Alamos -- New worlds, old words: the exploration and discovery of nuclear physics -- "Taking the cloth": the moral texture of Los Alamos -- "Beggared description": writing nuclear weapons -- Physics in fiction: "the voice of the dolphins" and Riddley Walker.