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    Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb
    Unavailable
    Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb
    Unavailable
    Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb
    Ebook980 pages19 hours

    Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb

    By William Lanouette, Bela Silard and Jonas Salk

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Leaves no doubt that this bizarre Hungarian was one of the great minds of our time, or any time . . . A wonderful book about this endlessly fascinating man” (The New York Times Book Review).
     
    When we think about the creation of the atom bomb, we may think of Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, or Edward Teller. Yet one name that is rarely mentioned is Leo Szilard, though he is known in scientific circles as “father of the atom bomb.” The man who first developed the idea of harnessing energy from nuclear chain reactions, he is curiously buried with barely a trace in the history of this controversial topic.
     
    Born in Hungary and educated in Berlin, he escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1933. In order to prevent Nazi scientists from stealing his ideas about nuclear chain reactions, he kept his theories secret, until he and Albert Einstein pressed the US government to research atomic reactions and designed the first nuclear reactor. Though he started his career lobbying for civilian control of atomic energy, he concluded it with founding, in 1962, the first political action committee for arms control, the Council for a Livable World. This is the story of the remarkable life of a unique and colorful character.
     
    “Cast[s] welcome light on the physicist’s career and character . . . Szilard was at the epicenter of the Manhattan Project—indeed, he patented the first reactor design with Enrico Fermi—but his concern over the destructive uses of atomic power (and a degree of personal eccentricity) isolated him from the celebrity (and Nobel prizes) that came to other founding fathers of quantum physics.” —Publishers Weekly
     
    “Mind-blowing Szilardian anecdotes fill almost every page, making this one of the most entertaining stories in recent years.” —The New York Times Book Review
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 1, 2013
    ISBN9781628734775
    Unavailable
    Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb

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    Reviews for Genius in the Shadows

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    • 4/5
      I finished William Lanouette's Genius in the Shadow's: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb.A found Szilard a difficult man to get a grip on. A genius but easily distracted, he moved from one idea to the next often expounding a great theory but often not going to the next level validate this thoughts, often passing them on to other's some of which achieved Nobel Prizes from the seed he planted.Born in Hungary, later refusing to go back due to the fascist regime of Admiral Horthy and afterward because of what he saw as the legacy of this regime. HE served in the Austrian Army in World War I, attained Germany Citizenship in the day of the Weimar Republic, only later to leave because of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, later to emigrate to the England and later the United States where he became a naturalized citizen. He achieved his Ph.D. under the friendly guidance of Albert Einstein in Physics, after struggling between his father's wish of pursuing engineering.An early visionary of the potential of nuclear fission to be both a source of energy and as a destructive force in the body of the atomic bomb and later the hydrogen bomb. He was one of those who encourage Einstein to write the now famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt encouraging him to invest in the making of an atomic bomb. He was instrumental along with Enrico Fermi and developing the first atomic pile in Chicago and foresaw the earlier the value in both Uranium 235 and Plutonium as potential fuel for bombs. Due to being an immigrant and a Jew and being a non conformist feel out with General Groves and was post World War II, blackballed from many posting in nuclear physics. Which along with his natural tendencies led him to to continue a trend of moving from one post to another without achieving a full time academic post in many of the institutions and facilities he worked in. He struggled to stay on a singular course dabbling in physics, engineering, biology and social justice during he long career. He was after World War II among the vocal scientists, who were involved in the creation of the Atomic Bomb to push for Arms Control. A fascinating multi-faceted and who had careers in numerous different disciplines. Not always easy to like and hard to understand but worth of time to study and strive to understand for the uniqueness he brough to the world of Science.