The Neutron's Long Shadow: Legacies of Nuclear Explosives Production in the Manhattan Project [Hardcover]

The intellectual adventure of developing the atomic bomb at Los Alamos has been well documented, but the fact is that 90% of the Manhattan Project expenditures went to produce the exotic nuclear explosive materials required. That is the story told here, a story of the brilliant harnessing of American industry to build a coordinated network of huge production plants using technology that was being developed even as the plants themselves were rising. It is the story of multiple, complex production methods being pursued simultaneously without knowing any of them would ultimately work, a story of daring gambles and their ultimate redemption. It is the story of the frantic building of subsequent, larger plants that were worked to the limits of their safe operation during the Cold War arms race. This is a story told by the author in historical narrative and new high-resolution photographs of fast-disappearing relics.Martin Miller has been doing serious high-resolution photography since 1970. As a former research physicist, Miller brings a distinctive point of view to creating images of this quintessentially scientific subject. His photographic work has also received numerous international awards.In this comprehensive and definitive work, Martin Miller reveals the massive, brooding machinery behind the apocalyptic weapons of the Atomic Age. Much that is revealed here is gonedismantled and buried awaymaking Millers haunting photographs a final, Ozymandian memorial. A great addition to the literature on the Manhattan Project. Deserves a prominent place among books about the atomic bomb. The first book to accurately depict the role of the production plants in Hanford and Oak Ridge.