Scientific Publishing The Soviet Atomic Project: How The Soviet Union Obtained The Atomic Bomb (General Physics Popular Readin)

The book describes the lives of the people who gave Stalin his weapon scientists, engineers, managers, and prisoners during the early post war years from 1945-1953. Many anecdotes and vicissitudes of life at that time in the Soviet Union accompany considerable technical information regarding the solutions to formidable problems of nuclear weapons development.The contents should interest the reader who wants to learn more about this part of the history and politics in 20th century physics. The prevention of nuclear proliferation is a topic of current interest, and the procedure followed by the Soviet Union as described in this book will help to understand the complexities involved. Review Political intrigue, the arms race, early developments of nuclear science, espionage and more are all present in this gripping book … The book is crisply written and well worth the read. The text includes a number of translated segments of official documents plus extracts from memoirs of some of the people involved. So, although Pondrom sprinkles his opinions throughout, there is sufficient material to permit readers to make their own judgements. --CERNThe book should be easily understood by any student of physics, and in fact many physics students might be well advised to purchase it anyway, since the author's expository style is exceptionally clear, and items are covered that many standard textbooks overlook ... It is likely to become a standard reference. It amounts to a great achievement on its author s part, and I would recommend it in the strongest possible way. Even regarding the Manhattan project, which has been dealt with by many other authors, this account is extremely informative and probably covers everything that many readers would wish to know. --Contemporary Physics