Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or SpyBasic Books, 3 feb 2015 - 400 pagine It was at the height of the Cold War, in the summer of 1950, when Bruno Pontecorvo mysteriously vanished behind the Iron Curtain. Who was he, and what caused him to disappear? Was he simply a physicist, or also a spy and communist radical? A protege of Enrico Fermi, Pontecorvo was one of the most promising nuclear physicists in the world. He spent years hunting for the Higgs boson of his day -- the neutrino -- a nearly massless particle thought to be essential to the process of particle decay. His work on the Manhattan Project helped to usher in the nuclear age, and confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist. Why, then, would he disappear as he stood on the cusp of true greatness, perhaps even the Nobel Prize? In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo's life, based on unprecedented access to Pontecorvo's friends and family and the Russian scientists with whom he would later work. Close takes a microscope to Pontecorvo's life, combining a thorough biography of one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century with the drama of Cold War espionage. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller -- classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a possible kidnapping by Soviet operatives -- Half-Life is a history of nuclear physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb. Physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb. |
Sommario
3 | |
12 | |
3 Paris and Politics 19361940 | 28 |
4 The First Escape 1940 | 53 |
5 Neutrons for Oil and War 19401941 | 66 |
6 East and West 19411942 | 77 |
7 The Pile at Chalk River 19431945 | 87 |
8 Physics in the Open 19451948 | 105 |
SECOND HALF | 211 |
14 In Dark Woods | 213 |
15 Exile | 225 |
16 Resurrection | 243 |
17 Mr Neutrino | 253 |
18 Private Bruno | 275 |
AFTERLIFE | 297 |
19 The Right Road Lost | 299 |
9 Maneuvers 19451950 | 117 |
INTERLUDE | 125 |
West to East | 127 |
HALF TIME | 145 |
10 Chain Reaction 19491950 | 147 |
11 From Abindonto Where? 1950 | 160 |
12 The Dear Departed 1950 | 180 |
13 The M15 Letters | 200 |
Afterword | 307 |
Acknowledgments | 315 |
Acronyms | 318 |
Notes | 319 |
363 | |
367 | |
Altre edizioni - Visualizza tutto
Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy Frank Close Anteprima limitata - 2015 |
Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist Or Spy Frank Close Anteprima non disponibile - 2015 |
Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy Frank Close Anteprima non disponibile - 2015 |
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Abingdon agents Alan Nunn American Anna antineutrino archives arrived atomic bomb Atomic Energy atomic nucleus August became began beta British Broda Bruno Pontecorvo Canada Canadian Chalk River Chapman Pincher colleagues communist confirmed cosmic rays Davis’s decay detect detector discovery Dubna e-mail Edoardo Amaldi electron electron-neutrinos Emilio Sereni experiment Fermi fission France Frédéric Gil Pontecorvo interview Gillo Giuliana Gordievsky Guido Halban Harwell heavy water hydrogen idea Illungo freddo Ioffe Irène Italian Italy Joliot-Curie Klaus Fuchs knew Kowarski Kurchatov laboratory later letter Lew Kowarski Lona Cohen Marianne Marianne’s memo Moscow muon Nobel November nuclear physics nuclear reactor October paper parents Paris particles Philby Philby’s physicists Pincher pions plutonium Pomeranchuk Pontecorvo Affair Pontecorvo family protons radioactivity recalled Rome Russian Scientist Spies secret Segrè September Soviet Union Stalin TNA KV told Turchetti Ugo Amaldi United uranium USSR Via Panisperna Boys