Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (Review)

On July 16, 1945, a fireball 600 feet wide exploded in the sky above a top-secret site in New Mexico bearing the code-name Trinity. Years later, the chief architect behind the experiment recalled, "We knew the world would not be the same."

In "Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb" (Hill and Wang, 2012), Jonathan Fetter-Vorm has written and illustrated in vivid detail the race to build, test, and drop the first atomic bombs.

The effort began in 1939, with the discovery that subatomic particles called neutrons could be used to break uranium atoms into pieces, a process called nuclear fission. Scientists around the world soon realized that nuclear fission, which releases seventy million times more energy than a chemical reaction, could be used to create an enormously powerful bomb.

American scientists--many of whom came from Europe--were concerned that the Nazis might be developing an atomic bomb. They convinced Roosevelt that it was essential for the U.S. to build the weapon before Hitler did so. The U.S. resolve to build the bomb--one of the most expensive undertakings that humans had ever attempted--was solidified when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. The man they recruited to lead the effort, which came to be known as the Manhattan Project, was a brilliant physicist named J. Robert Oppenheimer. For many, he would become the face of the atomic age, even as he came to have grave doubts about developing nuclear weapons.

Fetter-Vorm's explanations and illustrations of the fundamental science of nuclear reactions and the making of the bomb are among the clearest I have ever read. The historical details are equally compelling, and Fetter-Vorm does not flinch from the political and moral consequences of the atomic bomb that have shaped our lives even to this day.

Readers who want to dig a little deeper into the history of physics will enjoy another graphic book, "Feynman" (First Second Books, 2011), written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Leland Myrick. This biography captures the colorful life and scientific achievements of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, who also worked on the Manhattan Project.

The science in "Feynman" can be a challenge for some readers, but Ottaviani and Myrick manage to channel Feynman's gift for explaining difficult concepts to non-scientists. And it is no challenge at all to appreciate Feynman as the wise-cracking, safe-cracking, bongo playing genius who lived life to its fullest.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, August 19, 2012 edition of The News-Gazette.

Virtual Barber Shop

What with getting ready for the Richard Peck workshop this weekend (which I think will be awesome, and I'll blog about it when it's over), raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through their Team in Training program (click here if you're interested in contributing to a great cause and helping me meet my fundraising goal), and working on revisions and getting photo permissions for the Volcano Scientists book, I haven't had much time to blog. But I just had to give you a heads-up for one of the coolest auditory illusions I've ever heard: The Virtual Barbershop.

Listening to it, you feel as though you are in a barber's chair, with the barber moving around you, clipping away at your hair. The illusion demonstrates our ability to locate sounds in space; by comparing the inputs to the two ears, we can work out where a sound is coming from. You'll need to listen with headphones:


Aren't you glad it wasn't the virtual dentist?

I discovered this and four other auditory illusions on The New Scientist's web exclusive, part of their special music issue. I've been interested in auditory illusions for years, since I went to a talk by Diana Deutsch, who studies the perception and memory for sounds and has discovered a number of musical illusions and paradoxes. I think that this kind of stuff would make for a great kids' book--but it would have to be accompanied by a CD. I wonder if anybody would be interested. Hmmm.

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Now playing: Sam Moore with Wynonna, BeBe Winans & Billy Preston - I Can't Stand the Rain
via FoxyTunes

There's more to Beatrix than bunnies

I rented the movie Miss Potter this weekend, and while I generally enjoyed it, I was disappointed that not one mention was made of her early scientific work. During her teens, she made scientifically accurate drawings of botanical specimens as well as the cute animals that made her famous. She was especially fascinated by lichens. A Swiss botanist, Simon Schwendener, had proposed that lichens were actually algae and fungi living together in a symbiotic relationship--an idea that was treated with contempt by most contemporary scientists.

But her careful study of lichens led Potter to share the Swiss botanists' conclusions. In his wonderful and entertaining book, Liaisons of Life: From Hornworts to Hippos, How the Unassuming Microbe has Driven Evolution, Tom Wakeford writes:

At first, Beatrix was unperturbed by this opposition. Her uncle, the chemist Sir Henry Roscoe, had confidence in her and her belief in Schwendenerism. He urged that she give a paper at a scientific society, such as the Linnaean. Housed behind a grand facade in London's West End, the Linnaean Society was an international forum for naturalists and evolutionary biologists, as it had been when Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace had announced their theories of evolution there earlier in the century. But while Roscoe could contribute to the society's proceedings, Beatrix was, like all women, barred. Although now in her late twenties and gaining a reputation for her acute observations of nature, she was not even allowed to attend the society's open meetings. Her uncle eventually won the right to read her paper at a meeting of the society himself, but the official record of the meeting has been lost. We can only imagine the mixture of smirks and tut-tuts that greeted her findings. Beatrix, already a shy and reclusive character, recorded in her diary her feelings of humiliation at her treatment. Worse was to follow.

Ridiculed for having the audacity to have such radical theories--and a woman, too!--Potter soon abandoned her scientific studies. Potter and Schwendener were right, of course, and by 1929 H. G. Wells and Julian Huxley wrote that "a lichen is no more a single organism than a dairy farm is a single organism."

Back to Miss Potter. I know that a movie can't tell every story, but I think that this aspect of Potter's life is important--not to mention fascinating--enough that it merited at least a scene or two.

What if your dog wags its entire body?

There was an interesting article in yesterday's New York Times: "If you want to know if Spot Loves You So, It's in His Tail." I'm still trying to parse that headline, but we all know that Sandy Blakeslee probably had nothing to do with that, so I'll let it go.

Italian scientists have shown that when a dog feels fundamentally positive about something or someone, their tails wag more to the right of their rumps. When they have negative feelings, their tails wag with a portside bias.

It basically confirms of what scientists already know about brain assymetry in humans and other animals.

In most animals, including birds, fish and frogs, the left brain specializes in behaviors involving what the scientists call approach and energy enrichment. In humans, that means the left brain is associated with positive feelings, like love, a sense of attachment, a feeling of safety and calm. It is also associated with physiological markers, like a slow heart rate.

At a fundamental level, the right brain specializes in behaviors involving withdrawal and energy expenditure. In humans, these behaviors, like fleeing, are associated with feelings like fear and depression. Physiological signals include a rapid heart rate and the shutdown of the digestive system.

What's interesting about this study is that the tail is smack dab in the middle, so would it follow the pattern? And the answer is that it does.

And now it's your turn, "Speak". What does Belle have to say about that?