Atomic Fragments

A Daughter's Questions

Mary Palevsky (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

303 Seiten

2000
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-22055-3 (ISBN)

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Mary Palevsky needed to come to terms with the moral complexities of the atomic bomb: her parents worked on its development during World War II and were profoundly changed by that experience. After they died, unanswered questions sent their daughter on a search for understanding. This chronicle presents the story of that quest.

More than most of us, Mary Palevsky needed to come to terms with the moral complexities of the atomic bomb: her parents worked on its development during World War II and were profoundly changed by that experience. After they died, unanswered questions sent their daughter on a search for understanding. This compelling, sometimes heart-wrenching chronicle is the story of that quest. It takes her, and us, on a journey into the minds, memories, and emotions of the bomb builders. Scientists Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Joseph Rotblat, Herbert York, Philip Morrison, and Robert Wilson, and philosopher David Hawkins responded to Palevsky's personal approach in a way that dramatically expands their previously published statements. Her skill and passion as an interlocutor prompt these men to recall their lives vividly and to reexamine their own decisions, debating within themselves the complex issues raised by the bomb. The author herself, seeking to comprehend the widely differing ways in which individual scientists made choices about the bomb and made sense of their work, deeply reconsiders those questions of commitment and conscience her parents faced.
In personal vignettes that complement the interviews, she captures other remembrances of the bomb through commemorative events and chance encounters with people who were 'there'. Her concluding chapter reframes the crucial moral questions in terms that show the questions themselves to be the abiding legacy we all share. This beautifully written book bridges generations to make its readers participants in the ongoing dialogue about science and philosophy, war and peace.

Mary Palevsky directs the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project at UNLV.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Prologue
Broken Vessel
Chapter 1 Hans A. Bethe, Tough Dove
A Thousand Cranes
Chapter 2 Edward Teller, High Priest of Physics
Martyrs to History?
Chapter 3 Philip Morrison, Witness to Atomic History
Pacific Memories I
Chapter 4 David Hawkins, Chronicler of Los Alamos
Pacific Memories II
Chapter 5 Robert R. Wilson, the Psyche of a Physicist
Professor Bethe at Home in His Office
Chapter 6 Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Pioneer
The Old Country
Chapter 7 Herbert F. York, Inside History
Outsider History
Running to Ground Zero

EPILOGUE Mosaic
The Problem of Power
The Bohr Phenomenon
Being God or Seeing God?
An Atomic Scientist's Appeal
What Science Is and What Science Makes
Life Understood Backward
Farewell

Notes
Selected Bibliography
Sources of Illustrations
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	29.6.2000
Zusatzinfo	21 b-w photographs
Verlagsort	Berkerley
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	590 g
Themenwelt	Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Militärfahrzeuge / -flugzeuge / -schiffe
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Naturwissenschaften
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
ISBN-10	0-520-22055-2 / 0520220552
ISBN-13	978-0-520-22055-3 / 9780520220553
Zustand	Neuware