Manhattan Project to the Santa Fe Institute
Subtitle: the memoirs of George A. Cowan
By: George A. Cowan
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Albuquerque
Language: eng
Number of pages: 175
ISBN-13: 9780826348708
Description: "George Cowan's memoir is an engaging eyewitness account of how science works and how scientists, as people, work as well. In discussing his career in nuclear physics from the 1940s into the 1980s, Cowan talks about some of his assignments in nuclear forensics, including President Harry Truman's skeptical review of the analysis of Russia's first atomic bomb test in 1949. Throughout his book, Cowan weaves in intriguing anecdotes about a large cast of distinguished scientists - all related in his concise, wry manner."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: My early environment; title: The world outside our yard; title: Movies and vaudeville; title: Finding a role; title: The deepening Depression; title: My high school years; title: Undergraduate years at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; title: Entering a new world; title: Prologue to the Manhattan Project; title: I go to the "Met Lab"; title: My visit to Oak Ridge; title: Nuclear physics research at Columbia University; title: Photo gallery; title: I go to Los Alamos; title: The Pittsburgh years; title: I return to Los Alamos; title: The hydrogen bomb; title: New heavy elements; title: Thermonuclear testing, 1954-1955; title: Life at Los Alamos in the 1950s; title: The nuclear intelligence community; title: The Oppenheimer hearings; title: Los Alamos becomes privately owned; title: Banking at Los Alamos; title: Poker and theoretical physics; title: Project Gnome : the add-on wheel experiment; title: Duplicating Mike neutron exposure; title: U.S.-U.K. Joint Working Group for Radiochemistry; title: International symposium, heavy ion physics, Dubna, Russia; title: Photo gallery II; title: A trip to the North Pole; title: Down the Aleutian Islands to Amchitka; title: The Oklo natural reactor; title: Disposal of high-level radioactive wastes; title: The solar neutrino program; title: Atmospheric dynamics around Antarctica; title: The White House Science Council; title: Simplicity and complexity; title: Photo gallery III; title: The Santa Fe Institute : its intellectual origins; title: SFI becomes operational; title: Behavioral science; title: My interest in early mental development; title: What have I learned?; title: What lies ahead?; title: Power and complexity.