Lillian Hoddeson

Michael Riordan

Focuses on the human factors behind the invention of the twentieth century's defining artifact, the transistor, highlighting the pride, jealousy, and scientific ambitions of the Bell Labs team who spawned the epoch-making technology.

The Birth of the Information Age

Crystal Fire

Paul W. Henriksen

Roger A. Meade

Catherine L. Westfall

This 1993 book explores how the 'critical assembly' of scientists at Los Alamos created the first atomic bombs.

A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945

Critical Assembly

Laurie M. Brown

A distinctive collection of essays, discussions, and personal descriptions of the evolution of particle physics.

The Birth of Particle Physics

Peter Garrett

The first full-length biography of a brilliant, self-taught inventor whose innovations in information and energy technology continue to shape our world. The Economist called Stanford R. Ovshinsky (1922–2012) “the Edison of our age,” but this apt comparison doesn't capture the full range of his achievements. As an independent, self-educated inventor, Ovshinsky not only created many important devices but also made fundamental discoveries in materials science. This book offers the first full-length biography of a visionary whose energy and information innovations continue to fuel our post-industrial economy. In The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, Lillian Hoddeson and Peter Garrett tell the story of an unconventional genius with no formal education beyond high school who invented, among other things, the rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries that have powered everything from portable electronics to hybrid cars, a system for mass-producing affordable thin-film solar panels, and rewritable CDs and DVDs. His most important discovery, the Ovshinsky effect, led to a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics and yielded phase-change memory, which is now enabling new advances in microelectronics. A son of the working class who began as a machinist and toolmaker, Ovshinsky focused his work on finding solutions to urgent social problems, and to pursue those goals, he founded Energy Conversion Devices, a unique research and development lab. At the end of his life, battered by personal and professional losses, Ovshinsky nevertheless kept working to combat global warming by making solar energy “cheaper than coal”—another of his many visions of a better tomorrow.

The Life and Inventions of Stanford R. Ovshinsky

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age (Sloan Technology Series)

Ernst Braun

Jurgen Teichmann

Spencer Weart

This landmark work chronicles the origin and evolution of solid state physics, which grew to maturity between 1920 and 1960. The book examines the early roots of the field in industrial, scientific and artistic efforts and traces them through the 1950s, when many physicists around the world recognized themselves as members of a distinct subfield of physics research centered on solids. The book opens with an account of scientific and social developments that preceded the discovery of quantum mechanics, including the invention of new experimental means for studying solids and the establishment of the first industrial laboratories. The authors set the stage for the modern era by detailing the formulation of the quantum field theory of solids. The core of the book examines six major themes: the band theory of solids; the phenomenology of imperfect crystals; the puzzle of the plastic properties of solids, solved by the discovery of dislocations; magnetism; semiconductor physics; and collective phenomena, the context in which old puzzles such as superconductivity and superfluidity were finally solved. All readers interested in the history of science will find this absorbing volume an essential resource for understanding the emergence of contemporary physics.

Chapters from The History of Solid State Physics

Out of the Crystal Maze

Adrienne W. Kolb

Starting in the 1950s, US physicists dominated the search for elementary particles; aided by the association of this research with national security, they held this position for decades. In an effort to maintain their hegemony and track down the elusive Higgs boson, they convinced President Reagan and Congress to support construction of the multibillion-dollar Superconducting Super Collider project in Texas—the largest basic-science project ever attempted. But after the Cold War ended and the estimated SSC cost surpassed ten billion dollars, Congress terminated the project in October 1993. Drawing on extensive archival research, contemporaneous press accounts, and over one hundred interviews with scientists, engineers, government officials, and others involved, Tunnel Visions tells the riveting story of the aborted SSC project. The authors examine the complex, interrelated causes for its demise, including problems of large-project management, continuing cost overruns, and lack of foreign contributions. In doing so, they ask whether Big Science has become too large and expensive, including whether academic scientists and their government overseers can effectively manage such an enormous undertaking.

The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider

Tunnel Visions

Like any great university, the University of Illinois owes its prominence to the excellence of its faculty. In Lillian Hoddeson's No Boundaries, twenty-three scholars provide easily accessible vignettes about University of Illinois faculty who have made major contributions to their fields, to knowledge, and to the world. Here are many of the most inspiring--and often most amusing--people whose work elevated the University of Illinois into a world leader in a variety of areas. Their lives demonstrate again and again that the work of the University takes place as much away from campus as on it: Oscar Lewis's pioneering studies of poverty in Mexico, for example, Ralph Grim's geological work in Africa, and Nathan Newmark's architectural work in Mexico City. Here also are insights into the remarkable careers of classicist William Oldfather, chemist Roger Adams, the amazing double Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Bardeen, and accounts of Katharine Sharp's work that made the University of Illinois Library into a national treasure. Also included are the legendary contributions of the University of Illinois to computer science, biochemistry, history, literary study, and electronic music.

University of Illinois Vignettes

No Boundaries

This volume is a lucid and accurate history of the technical research that led to the first atomic bombs. The authors explore how the "critical assembly" of scientists, engineers, and military personnel at Los Alamos, responding to wartime deadlines, collaborated to create a new approach to large-scale research. The book opens with an introduction laying out major themes. After a synopsis of the prehistory of the bomb project, from the discovery of nuclear fission to the start of the Manhattan Engineer District, and an overview of the early materials program, the book examines the establishment of the Los Alamos Laboratory, the implosion and gun assembly programs, nuclear physics research, chemistry and metallurgy, explosives, uranium and plutonium development, confirmation of spontaneous fission in pile-produced plutonium, the thermonuclear bomb, critical assemblies, the Trinity test, and delivery of the combat weapons.

A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943-1945

Vicki Daitch

What is genius? Define it. Now think of scientists who embody the concept of genius. Does the name John Bardeen spring to mind? Indeed, have you ever heard of him? Like so much in modern life, immediate name recognition often rests on a cult of personality. We know Einstein, for example, not just for his tremendous contributions to science, but also because he was a character, who loved to mug for the camera. And our continuing fascination with Richard Feynman is not exclusively based on his body of work; it is in large measure tied to his flamboyant nature and offbeat sense of humor. These men, and their outsize personalities, have come to erroneously symbolize the true nature of genius and creativity. We picture them born brilliant, instantly larger than life. But is that an accurate picture of genius? What of others who are equal in stature to these icons of science, but whom history has awarded only a nod because they did not readily engage the public? Could a person qualify as a bona fide genius if he was a regular Joe? The answer may rest in the story of John Bardeen. John Bardeen was the first person to have been awarded two Nobel Prizes in the same field. He shared one with William Shockley and Walter Brattain for the invention of the transistor. But it was the charismatic Shockley who garnered all the attention, primarily for his Hollywood ways and notorious views on race and intelligence. Bardeen's second Nobel Prize was awarded for the development of a theory of superconductivity, a feat that had eluded the best efforts of leading theorists -- including Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Richard Feynman. Arguably, Bardeen's work changed the world in more ways than that of any other scientific genius of his time. Yet while every school child knows of Einstein, few people have heard of John Bardeen. Why is this the case? Perhaps because Bardeen differs radically from the popular stereotype of genius. He was a modest, mumbling Midwesterner, an ordinary person who worked hard and had a knack for physics and mathematics. He liked to picnic with his family, collaborate quietly with colleagues, or play a round of golf. None of that was newsworthy, so the media, and consequently the public, ignored him. John Bardeen simply fits a new profile of genius. Through an exploration of his science as well as his life, a fresh and thoroughly engaging portrait of genius and the nature of creativity emerges. This perspective will have readers looking anew at what it truly means to be a genius.

The Life and Science of John Bardeen: The Only Winner of Two Nobel Prizes in Physics

True Genius

In October 1993 the US Congress terminated the Superconducting Super Collider at the time the largest basic-science project ever attempted, with a total cost estimated to exceed $10 billion. Its termination was a watershed event a pivot point not only in the history of physics but also for science in general. "Tunnel Visions" follows the evolution of the endeavor from its origins in the Reagan Administration s military buildup of the early 1980s to its post-Cold War demise a decade later. The failure of the SSC raises the question of whether Big Science has become too big and expensive; can scientists and their government backers effectively manage such enormous undertakings? The case of the Super Collider offers important lessons about the conditions required to build and sustain a large scientific laboratory, and the rise and fall of the SSC also serves as a cautionary tale about the long-term viability of a research community that comes to depend as much as did US high-energy physics upon a single experimental facility of such an unprecedented scale. Riordan, Hoddeson, and Kolb have written the definitive history of the SSC. "

Lillian Hoddeson

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