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The Los Alamos Primer Paperback – April 1, 1943

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 156 ratings
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Unabridged declassified value reproduction of The Los Alamos Primer by Robert Serber, in full color with all censor markings. This is the booklet given to new workers at Los Alamos during World War II, to catch them up on how to build a practical fission bomb.

The Primer was driven by Robert Oppenheimer asking his protégé Robert Serber to summarize all knowledge and possible solutions known as of April 1943 in a series of lectures. Serber did such an excellent job that the notes from the series was turned into The Los Alamos Primer.

Serber was known as an expert that bridged theory and reality, and so was also chosen to be one of the first Americans to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki to assess the atomic damage in 1945.

Touch a piece of history in this slim volume with the full text at an affordable price.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    32 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Chump Change
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 1943
  5. Dimensions
    8.5 x 0.07 x 11 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1640320997
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1640320994
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chump Change; Illustrated edition (April 1, 1943)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 32 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1640320997
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1640320994
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.53 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.07 x 11 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 156 ratings

About the author

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Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes

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Richard Rhodes is the author of 25 works of history, fiction and letters. He's a Kansas native, a father and grandfather. His book The Making of the Atomic Bomb won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. He lectures widely on subjects related to his books, which run the gamut from nuclear history to the story of mad cow disease to a study of how people become violent to a biography of the 19th-century artist John James Audubon. His latest book is Hell and Good Company, about the people and technologies of the Spanish Civil War. His website is www.RichardRhodes.com.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
156 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Uncle Pinky
5.0 out of 5 stars The inside thinking of the creators of The Bomb.
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2024
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This was the orientation material for scientists at Los Alamos. Highly recommended.
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Professor Joseph L. McCauley
5.0 out of 5 stars Written well at the level of junior-senior level physics and chemistry students
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2023
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The book gives two critical mass calculations and provides much explanation. The reaction-diffusion equation is solved for spherical symmetry using junior level math. Two different boundary conditions are calculated: without and also with 'tamper' (meaning a spherical confining shell). If you are able to read the Farm Hall dialogues in German, then you can discover that in his Aug 25, 1945, lecture to the sequestered group of German nuclear researchers in England, Heisenberg did exactly the calculation with tamper, while recalling the mean free paths and cross sections from memory. So understanding the 'Primer' not only allows one to learn how Serber calculated the critical mass at Los Alamos, it also prepares for learning how much Heisenberg knew in Aug. 1945. Historians of science have wasted many words arguing back and forth about what Heisenberg knew, but now you can know it.
One person found this helpful
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SJ_Andy
5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it's a reprint -- but there is sufficient value for its price
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2023
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It is a slim volume because the original now declassified notes are only 24 pages long.

Referring to the content: I do not have advanced math(s) and have always wondered how cosmologists and others create such a vivid picture and understanding with pure mathematical models. Possibly because some of the equations have their main behavior summarized in written in English I understood much more than I was expecting to. It is well presented in a succinct and concrete way.
2 people found this helpful
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Joey N
3.0 out of 5 stars I was expecting a little more than a book version of the publicly available PDF.
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2023
Verified Purchase
It was good, I'll admit, but I was expecting more than the publicly available PDF in book form. Maybe explanations for the more complicated things, an easier-to-read transcription... Instead, unless I missed something, it is just a cleaned-up version of the pdf that is readily available.
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Steven L. Swinehart
5.0 out of 5 stars Much More Than the Basic Primer
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2020
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The original version of the Los Alamos Primer was a 24 page, type written document. It was written by Robert Serber to give scientists new to the Manhattan Project a short course in nuclear physics so that everyone would have the same basis of understanding for the their work on the project. This version of the Primer is an expanded version that includes notes by Robert Serber giving far more detail than the original Primer. It's the information Serber would have presented if he knew everything learned about the physics of the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. Fascinating reading if you want to know how and why an atomic bomb works. Be advised, that much of the information on the physics of the bomb and its materials is contained in mathematical equations. While Serber clearly explains the equations through his annotations, and the equations can be understood, if you find mathematics difficult, this might be one facet of the book that could be frustrating.
8 people found this helpful
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Paul A Lewicki
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2023
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Good book, good take on the Los Alamos experience, primer of what was started.
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steven
5.0 out of 5 stars The actual original guide for the men who built the bomb
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2022
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A physics outline that was the first intro handed out to the first wave of recruits at Los Alamos in 1943. With intro by Richard Rhodes.
One person found this helpful
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Blackwatch
2.0 out of 5 stars A curiosity at best
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2023
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Los Alamos Primer is incomprehensible but has a few good photos
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Mark MacLeod
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in Canada on October 3, 2022
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Short and dense. A great intro to a world largely unknown in 1942
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Jacquesvins
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting and honest...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2023
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An incredibly complex and honest historical collection of facts that made it easy for those in charge to decide that they needed this new power source to change the course of the war... Forever....
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good quality - video demonstration
Reviewed in Spain on November 2, 2020
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The media could not be loaded.
 I almost did not buy the product because of the 1-star reviews but they are unjustified as I show in the video. I had very low expectations because of those reviews but I got impressed by the quality of the product. It is edited by the University California Press, so the format is very clean and clear, not a photocopy as some comments say.
It is plenty of physics formulae as expected. The bold text is the original text that they used in the lectures at Los Alamos and the "normal" text are some extra notes that the author added later, so it is like when you can see a movie with the director's comments. This document is part of the History and one of the most astonishing achievements by humankind, and the quality of the edition is quite high, so you will not regret if you get one!! I didn't.
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Dr. T.
5.0 out of 5 stars Los Alamos Primer – Faksimile
Reviewed in Germany on January 8, 2020
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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 im April fünf Vorlesungen über den damaligen Stand der Erkenntnisse. Die Lektionen behandeln solche Themen wie die Energie des Spaltungsprozesses, schnelle Neutronen Kettenreaktionen, Spaltungs- Querschnitte, Neutronen Spektrum und anderes mehr. Edward Condon machte dabei Notizen, die als Basis für ein Schreibmaschinen Skripts dienen. Kopien davon wurden 1943 an die neu ankommenden, frisch rekrutierten Postdos und anderen Mitarbeiter verteilt, um sie mit dem aktuellen Stand bekannt zu machen.

Das vorliegende Booklet enthält farbige Faksimiles des 24 seitigen Skripts, mit allen Markierungen des Zensors, nach Deklassifizierung des Dokuments. Eingeleitet wird die Schrift mit Ross Boltons Begrüßung der neuen Mitarbeiter des Projekt Y (Los Alamos Laboratory), mit historischen und modernen Bildern der Anlagen.

Der Text des 'Los Alamos Primer' erschien 2008 in einer kommentierten Edition, herausgeben vom University of California Verlag. Da 1943 die Zeit drängte – man hatte immer noch keine Informationen, wie weit Deutschland mit seinem Uran-Projekt voran gekommen war, enthielt das Original Skript nur grobe Entwürfe, die Themenauswahl beschränkte sich auf das notwendigste – aus diesem Grund hat Robert Serber in dieser Ausgabe zahlreiche Erläuterungen und Anmerkungen einfließen lassen. Er konstatierte aber, dass die knappe Zusammenfassung doch alles enthielt, was man in April 1943 über den Bau einer Atombombe wusste.

Der Skript ist ein ausgezeichnetes wissenschaftlich technisches historisches Zeitdokument, das legendär bei den Studenten jener Forscher, die nach dem Bau der Bombe an ihre Lehrstühle zurückkehrten, wurde – betont Robert Rhodes, Autor von 'Making of the Atomic Bomb' – dem Standardwerk zu diesem Thema, in seinem Vorwort zu der erwähnten 2008-er Ausgabe.

Die hier vorliegende Faksimile Ausgabe stellt also eine schöne Ergänzung zu diesem Material dar.
One person found this helpful
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ultrafemico
5.0 out of 5 stars Un documento storico.
Reviewed in Italy on October 11, 2018
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Questo è un documento storico ed è per veri appassionati della storia della scienza e della storia della radioattività. Si tratta di fotocopie del documento che veniva fornito ai ricercatori di tutto il mondo con esperienze in vari campi della fisica e della chimica che entravano nel laboratorio segreto di Los Alamos, coordinato da Julius Robert Oppenheimer.
Si tratta delle conoscenze che si avevano all'inizio degli anni '40 sull'uranio e sul plutonio. Tutto molto affascinante anche se non è del tutto facile da comprendere se non si hanno delle conoscenze di base (e, in qualche caso, approfondite) di fisica. Il documento è anche corredato di 11 fotografie in bianco e nero, non originalmente presenti nel documento distribuito agli scienziati.
Per il modesto costo penso che sia un valido acquisto.
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