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The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb First Edition

by Robert Serber (Author), Richard Rhodes (Editor, Introduction)

4.6 74 ratings

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The classified lectures that galvanized the Manhattan Project scientists―with annotations for the nonspecialist reader and an introduction by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian.

In March 1943 a group of young scientists, sequestered on a mesa near Santa Fe, attended a crash course in the new atomic physics. The lecturer was Robert Serber, J. Robert Oppenheimer's protégé, and they learned that their job was to invent the world's first atomic bomb.

Serber's lecture notes, nicknamed the "Los Alamos Primer," were mimeographed and passed from hand to hand, remaining classified for many years. They are published here for the first time, and now contemporary readers can see just how much was known and how terrifyingly much was unknown when the Manhattan Project began. Could this "gadget," based on the newly discovered principles of nuclear fission, really be designed and built? Could it be small enough and light enough for an airplane to carry? If it could be built, could it be controlled?

Working with Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the development of the atomic bomb, Professor Serber has annotated original lecture notes with explanations of the physics terms for the nonspecialist. His preface, an informal memoir, vividly conveys the mingled excitement, uncertainty, and intensity felt by the Manhattan Project scientists. Rhodes's introduction provides a brief history of the development of atomic physics up to the day that Serber stood before his blackboard at Los Alamos. In this edition, The Los Alamos Primer finally emerges from the archives to give a new understanding of the very beginning of nuclear weapons. No seminar anywhere has had greater historical consequences.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In April 1943, a young physicist named Robert Serber stood up before a small group of fellow scientists in a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and, as one attendee later recalled, began to speak in "a hazy, uncertain voice" about the project on which they would all be working. "The object," he said, "is to produce a practical military weapon in the form of a bomb in which the energy is released by a fast neutron chain reaction in one or more of the materials known to show nuclear fission." That mechanism, of course, was the atomic bomb, which a little more than two years later would be used against Japan.

In the following weeks, Serber touched on many themes, racing to an array of chalkboards to scribble complex formulas and equations. Among other things, he addressed how big a bomb would need to be in order to achieve critical mass--between 13.5 centimeters and 9 centimeters, he calculated--and what the probability of premature detonation might be. (It was, he concluded, always a danger.) At the end of the series, his lecture notes, classified as top secret, were gathered and printed for distribution to later cadres of scientists who came to work at Los Alamos. Years after the war they were declassified, and Serber, who died in May of 1997, took the opportunity to reflect on his work and the strange culture of the laboratory, adding postscripts and other commentary reproduced in the present edition.

Serber's book is an important document in the history of science, and remains one of the most accessible introductions to nuclear physics ever written. (On that note, those who worry that it is all too easy to find bomb-building instructions in the library or on the Web should rest assured: these lectures were tough for the greatest theoretical physicists of the time to follow.) It all makes for provocative reading. --Gregory McNamee

Review

"The Primer is an extraordinary document. Perusing it gives one a sense of being there at the start of the Los Alamos project. In its 24 pages, Serber both adroitly summarized the state of existing knowledge and laid out a prescient road map for the work ahead and the challenges that might arise. . . .mandatory reading for anyone interested in the origins of nuclear weapons." ― Physics Today

"...educational and designed to help the naive reader. . . .[the] definitive, extensively annotated reprint of the five bomb-physics lectures given in April 1943 by Robert Serber for new arrivals at Los Alamos." ― American Physical Society Journal

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; First Edition (March 2, 1992)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 138 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520075765
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520075764
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.6 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,032,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #483 in Nuclear Weapons & Warfare History (Books)
- #2,000 in Scientist Biographies
- #3,521 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books)

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4.6 74 ratings

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John Gordon

Los Alamos Primer

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2010

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This book was a new addition to my library on 'Special Weapons'. I've had a long term interest in all things dealing with them. The Los Alamos Primer would have been a great purchase if it had simply consisted of the original lectures. The 4 men who contribute to this work have produced an important book.
Richard Rhodes introduced and edited (conducted) this book. I believe any book with his name attached, is worth a buy. I find his writing to be very clear and interesting.
Robert Serber, who gave the original lectures, does an excellent job of a literary 'voice over' on them. He explains, expounds, and fills out the basic lectures.
On top of what those 2 guys have made, this box of Cracker Jacks came with a very nice surprise. Included in this book are 2 old (1940-41) memorandums by Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch. These were instrumental in the notification of the Atomic potentials to the US/British governments. I have read about them, but never expected to read them. In 3 words- BUY THIS BOOK!

10 people found this helpful

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Tom Oneill

An excellent read!

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2012

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It was a total surprise to realize each and everyone of the Los Alamos team was handed the mimeographed primer prior to commencing their work in the lab. The amount of info that was already understood, the insightful, intelligent guesses are just spellbinding. You get a true sense of the absolute conviction that the bomb will be built, it will be dropped and it will work. Concurrent projects of uranium separation at Oakridge and the manufacture of plutonium at Hanford Washington...proceeded with total conviction even though the explosive power of fission, while calculated had never been observed. In today's world where everything is miniaturized and communication is at the speed of light, nonetheless, both the uranium bomb and the plutonium bomb were only a few pounds in weight as necessitated by 1945 technology. With higher quality nuclear materials and infintely better tampers and higher neutron efficiency, you can only guess the small size of today's devastating nuclear devises.

5 people found this helpful

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Charles Dickens

Learn from the Master

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2009

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This is a good book for someone who already knows a little about modern physics in general or the making of an atomic bomb. Written by the scientist who was charged with bringing new arrivals to the Los Alamos up to speed. Reading this book is like enrolling in a short course taught by a master teacher. You learn the same things that a scientist or engineer working on the Manhattan Project would have learned.

If you have a month and want to learn as much as possible, read Richard Rhode's books on the subject The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb . Be prepared to be exhausted. If you have an afternoon and want to learn as much as possible sit down with this book. You'll learn a surprising amount of material. It's the ultimate crash course in fission bombs.

6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

History, not a "How To" guide

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2013

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The annotations cover some of what was learned later, corrections to the math, and the human context. This makes more interesting reading than the original handouts.

The biographic appendix in this edition of the primer is a nice Who's Who of the Los Alamos community.

The site nuclearweaponarchive.org discusses the engineering design of nuclear weapons in more detail, based on later testing.

This shows where they were at the start of the process. The basic facts of the physics involved are now in the public record, which as Serber says, is not the same knowing as the engineering details.

If you just skim the equations and read the conclusions in this book, I think you could understand the basics with today's high school math and physics. It takes more math and physics to derive some of the formulas.

For more of the human dimension I'd refer you to the biography of Serber Peace and War , still available as a used book, and to Richard Rhodes' books. The biography describes his trip to Japan to assess the bomb effects, and his post-war career. He was not treated as badly as Oppenheimer, but he did face some questioning in the McCarthy Era.

9 people found this helpful

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J. Stevenson

This is really a primer - suitable for anyone interested in the subject

Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2016

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This little book is great for anyone interested in the history of the Manhattan Project. It describes the theoretical challenges in learning how to do something that had never been done before. What's more they (the scientists at Los Alamos) had very little on none of the active material on which to test their theories. There is mathematics in the book but for the reader who is not mathematically inclined it can be passed over as a demonstration that it was done and is correct without the reader having to verify it. The Introduction by Richard Rhodes is great - written after the fact - he gives an overview of the Project which had established the need for the Primer.

3 people found this helpful

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s a guidry

Great book, exactly with I was looking for

Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2021

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I am very happy with this book. It provides some additional information that further explains the Manhattan Project LA-1 Primer. And that was exactly what I wanted.

Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2016

Verified Purchase

Excellent read. I majored in engineering but that was 25 years ago. To say that I'm rusty with math & physics is an understatement, yet I was still able to understand this book. When the Manhattan Project started, Robert Serber (author) had to compile what was known about nuclear physics into lectures in order to bring other key scientists up to speed. I don't know how else to sum it up other than Serber is an OUTSTANDING teacher. (I only wish that my professors were as good at teaching as Serber).

2 people found this helpful

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Dr. T.

Los Alamos Primer

Reviewed in Germany on December 19, 2019

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Robert Serber wurde 1938 Assistenzprofessor in Berkley, dort schloss er sich der sehr aktiven Theoriegruppe Oppenheimers an. Als Robert Oppenheimer die wissenschaftliche Leitung des Manhattan-Projekt übertragen wurde, avancierte er zu dessen rechter Hand. Er gehört zu den Teilnehmern der Sommer Konferenz 1942 in Berkley, auf der Bethe, van Vleck, Rabi, Teller u.a. die prinzipielle Möglichkeit einer Atombombe diskutieren. Serber gehört neben Bethe und Teller zu jenen Forschern, die das gesamte Feld überblicken.

Nachdem das Los Alamos Labor im Frühjahr 1943 seine Arbeit aufnahm, hält Serber fünf Vorlesungen über den damaligen Stand der Erkenntnisse über Kernphysik. Edward Condon machte dabei Notizen, die nach eingehender Diskussion, die Basis des Skript der vorliegenden Zusammenfassung bildeten. Kopien davon wurden im weiteren an die neu ankommenden, frisch rekrutierten Postdos und anderen Mitarbeiter verteilt.

Die Lektionen behandeln solche Themen wie die Energie des Spaltungsprozesses, schnelle Neutronen Kettenreaktionen, Spaltungs- Querschnitte, Neutronen Spektrum und anderes mehr.

Da die Zeit drängte – man hatte immer noch keine Informationen, wie weit Deutschland mit seinem Uran-Projekt voran gekommen war, musste sich Serber bei der Themenauswahl auf das notwendigste beschränken und häufig Erklärungen weglassen. Obwohl die Darstellungen also oft nur grobe Entwürfe sind, enthielt die Zusammenfassung doch alles, was man in April 1943 über den Bau einer Atombombe wusste, merkt der Autor in seiner Einleitung an.

Das schmale Bändchen ist ein ausgezeichnetes wissenschaftlich technisches historisches Zeitdokument, das legendär bei den Studenten jener Forscher, die nach dem Bau der Bombe an ihre Lehrstühle zurückkehrten – betont Robert Rhodes, Autor von 'Making of the Atomic Bomb' – dem Standardwerk zu diesem Thema, in seinem Vorwort. Das Skript wurde erst 1965 vollständig de-klassifiziert, als das Material längst aus anderen Quellen öffentlich bekannt war. Im Anhang enthält es das Frisch- Peierls Memorandum aus dem Jahre 1940 über die Möglichkeiten einer Kernspaltungs- Bombe. Ergänzt wird das Buch, mit einem Personenverzeichnis, mit biographischen Anmerkungen, und einem Index.

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Alex D

Excellent read, full of historical nuggets.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

A very good read. Contains a lot of information not in other texts. Some reviews complain that it contains some maths, but the maths is really basic that a child could understand. Full of historical nuggets.

deeno

Interesting book, poor kindle edition

Reviewed in Italy on September 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

The Primer is part of the history of the development of the atomic bomb.
It is an account of what was known and what was not at the beginning of the Manhattan Project.
So it is kind of historical document and that is its value, especially with the notes.
Some background in physics is necessary.
The low score is due to the very poor quality of the kindle edition.
It is impossible to distinguish between the original document and the notes, as should be according to the text.
Considering the high price of the kindle edition, I was expecting something better.

One person found this helpful

Ken Watkins

Finally satisfied my thirst for info on uranium bomb physics

Reviewed in Canada on April 30, 2013

Verified Purchase

A really bright grade 13 physics student could follow the math involved. Its not as hard as you might think.

The book covers the history as well as the physics.

The theory of how to build the bomb was pretty well understood, but making it happen was pretty tricky. Plus, sourcing the materials was the hardest part of all.

Great book.

2 people found this helpful