Atomic Adventures: Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder

by James Mahaffey

The latest investigation from acclaimed nuclear engineer and author James Mahaffey unearths forgotten nuclear endeavors throughout history that were sometimes hair-brained, often risky, and always fascinating. Whether you are a scientist or a poet, pro-nuclear energy or staunch opponent, conspiracy theorist or pragmatist, James Mahaffey's books have served to open up the world of nuclear science like never before. With clear explanations of some of the most complex scientific endeavors in history, Mahaffey's new book looks back at the atom's wild, secretive past and then toward its potentially bright future.

Mahaffey unearths lost reactors on far flung Pacific islands and trees that were exposed to active fission that changed gender or bloomed in the dead of winter. He explains why we have nuclear submarines but not nuclear aircraft and why cold fusion doesn't exist. And who knew that radiation counting was once a fashionable trend? Though parts of the nuclear history might seem like a fiction mash-up, where cowboys somehow got a hold of a reactor, Mahaffey's vivid prose holds the reader in thrall of the infectious energy of scientific curiosity and ingenuity that may one day hold the key to solving our energy crisis or sending us to Mars. 16 pages of color images

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Physics, Engineering, Historical

464 pages, Hardcover

First published June 6, 2017

About the author

Dr. James Mahaffey was senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and has worked at the Defense Nuclear Agency, the National Ground Intelligence Center, and the Air Force Air Logistics Center, focusing on nuclear power, nano-technology, and cold fusion.
(Bio from publisher)

Some of the author's works are published under the James A. Mahaffey or Jim Mahaffey names.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve spent a few years of my life aboard navy submarines and, much later, I lived practically next door to the Hanford site in Washington. I can tell you from first hand experience that those brainy, nerdish types who earn their living near nuclear reactors and radioactive substances are fairly interesting individuals.

First of all, most of them are above-average intelligent. Ask a ‘nuke’ about the atomic number of cobalt and you have a 97% chance that you’ll get a 45 minute dissertation and an 84% chance that they’ll eventually say, “twenty seven.”

Secondly, they all have fascinating tales to tell. Imagine having a job where a slip-up could mean an extended stay in a high pressure anti-contamination shower and a follow up federal investigation—not to mention a spot on the six o’clock TV news. A hundred bad days = a hundred good stories.

Atomic Adventures is an assembled collection of such stories. Some of them are the author’s own (see: experiments in cold fusion); others are events that happened to someone else. There are a few incidents (and accidents) recounted here that require a rudimentary understanding of quantum mechanics. Although Mahaffey valiantly tries to give lay level explanations (sans Schrödinger's cat) I’m not certain he is always successful. Still, for the science-minded among us, it is a very good read.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Mahaffey is a good writer, and has an eye for oddball anecdotes. He gets carried away with the details sometimes, and the text can be technically dense. I like his discursive-techie voice. He's fond of tiny-print footnotes; some have a hidden nugget or two. I’m the intended audience, and the book mostly clicked for me. Solid 4 stars overall; 5 when he's cookin'.

If I were you, I'd skim the antique N-ray stuff (Introduction) very lightly, especially if you're already familiar with this fine demo of Feynman's maxim that "the easiest person to fool is yourself."

Chapter 1 relates Ronald Richter's fusion-power boondoggle in Argentina, which he sold to Juan Peron as a vanity project. Richter burned through the equivalent of $300 million in today's money in 4 years! (1948-52). Basis was a laboratory curiosity for inducing a bit of fusion with a powerful electric arc. You do get some fusion that way (probably), but zero chance to commercialize it. Of course, nothing else has worked, either, after many billions spent, and practical fusion power is still “40 years away"....

Chapter 2.
More misguided projects, per Mahaffey. He pans the “Star Wars” ABM project, pitched by Edward Teller -- but admits it scared the hell out of the Soviets, and likely contributed to the collapse of the USSR. Next, nuclear-powered aircraft! Ideas that were, well, unlikely to succeed. You will learn more about the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Lab than you will want to know. Skim for cool anecdotes.

Cold fusion (Ch.3 et al.):
Mahaffey & colleagues were the first Americans to "confirm" Pons & Fleischmann's 1989 “discovery.” Sadly, this was the result of haste, and an odd malfunction of their neutron detectors. Probably something similar happened in the P&F experiments. Cold fusion, very unlikely when announced, is now dead, dead, dead.

Cold War, WW2: .
I posted a couple of quotes: see sidebar, where you can get a quick idea of the flavor of the book.
“It's a good thing we won the war. If we hadn't, I'd be hanged as a war criminal" -- Gen. Curtis LeMay, quoted by Mahaffey

Rest of the book is worth reading, but I started skimming. Always a chance of a nugget, or a chuckle: the Chechen guerrilla who stole a super-powerful cobalt-60 source: "he was dead in 30 minutes," the record so far.

Good pro review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fumbling... ((Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers) )

[Boudewijn · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of stories on various nuclear topics such as N-rays, Cold Fusion, nuclear powered bombers and the 'Star Wars Program'. It is a collection of unrelated anecdotes, journalism, memoir, and history, some better than others. I especially liked his personal tale of that few weeks he thought to have replicated the famous (or infamous) discovery of cold fusion, by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons. In the end it turned out to all due to faulty equipment, leaving Mahaffey embarassed.

The issue that I have that most of the other topics just didn't seem to have a structure, giving the book a feel of an author clearing his files of unpublished material. This wouldn't have been a problem if all topics would have had the same entertainment value, but unfortunately most did not.

[Kazen]

While I loved Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima I'm having a hard time getting into this one. Trying to figure out why... it's a little bit more textbook-y and I'm not really sure what thread is holding the whole thing together. The text is full of rabbit trails, and while the footnotes are fun they're another layer of rabbit trails off of that. Or maybe it's just the wrong time, who knows. Sigh.

[Noah Goats · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history of science is to some extent a history of failure, but most of us don't think much about those failures. In Atomic Adventures James McHaffey dives into scientific misfires with a gleeful good humor (even when he is connected with the mistake personally). But failure can be both fascinating and instructive and learning about things like SDI and cold fusion can be a lot of fun, even if these ideas haven't panned out (YET!).

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile]]

Boooooooooooored.

I agree with other reviewers: this is written like a textbook.

[Lis Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Mahaffey is former senior research scientist in nuclear physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who, as he says near the end of this book, now writes books. If you enjoy geeks geeking on about what they love (and I very much do), his books are a lot of fun.

This one is about some of the wilder and woollier adventures in atomic energy, bombs, scientific frauds, and all the things that make a life in science a lot more exciting than someone thinking of it only as, you know, science, might reasonably assume.

Stories include Ronald Richter selling Juan Peron on a fusion reactor project--a vanity project for Peron; for Richter a clever way to get out of Europe after the Second World War. It was based on essentially laboratory trick, for producing a tiny bit of fusion, which unfortunately is impossible to scale up to commercial energy production. Or, well, even small-scale production for research purposes. More than half a century after Richter's Argentine boondoggle, we still appear to be decades away from useful nuclear fusion for energy purposes.

Other stories include dirty bombs and what you should do, and the unwisdom of stealing radioactive materials. For instance, a Chechen rebel stole some cobalt-69, and was dead in thirty minutes. This was really a much better outcome for the rebel than for former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko poisoned with polonium-210, resulting in an agonizing death over the course of several weeks in 2006. Of course, those of us who grew up during the Cold War expect vile actions by the Russians. What's more startling and disturbing is how often radioactive materials have been used to poison people in the US and other countries, not to make a grand international example of someone, but for the ordinary reasons that lead to stabbings, shootings, and beatings. These attempts are often not successful, but in a way, that's hardly the point. They happen, and it's scary that they do.

On a lighter note, there are the episodes that may have been scientific fraud, or maybe just demonstrations of the fact that the easiest person to fool is yourself. One of those is Fleischman & Pons' announcement of cold fusion in 1989. This would have been a huge breakthrough for the whole world, and it set off a rush to try to duplicate their work. Mahaffey and his colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology got involved, and were the first to "confirm" the cold fusion phenomenon... And almost as quickly discovered there was a small problem in their instrumentation. Since they had gone to great effort to reproduce everything they could about Fleisschman & Pons' setup, it's quite likely they'd had the same instrument problem. Mahaffey is able to be truly merciless and gleeful in telling this particular story, because he's a principal in it.

We also get stories of abandoned reactors on forgotten islands, trees that change sex after being irradiated, a totally plausible possible explanation for what really happened at Roswell's Area 51, and accounts of the various efforts made to design an engine that really will let us travel to Mars, and maybe Alpha Centauri.

It's a lot of fun, and also pretty informative. Recommended.

I bought this audiobook.

[Howard Accurso · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book full of stories about atomic bombs, cold fusion, and the history of nuclear proliferation. I loved the isotopes and nuclides. And if you see a mushroom cloud in the distance with a band of red on top of it, that's most likely a U 235 fission event crowned with a layer of Strontium 90, the main radioactive byproduct of such a blast. There is also a chapter with advice on what to do if you are exposed to radiation. The text is meticulously footnoted, and ample sources are listed at the end of the book.

[Iona Sharma]

I liked the idea of a pop science book about nuclear power and explosions, which no one can say isn't an interesting topic! And there is a lot of fascinating stuff in this book that I did not know about, particularly about why cold fusion doesn't work, and also about post-WW2 shenanigans involving nuclear power in Argentina. Despite that, it's not really a great book. It has no particular structure other than things the author found interesting strung together in random order and towards the end it veers off its central topic altogether and starts talking about SETI and faster-than-light communication, for some reason. The author is also touchingly naive about political history, which is a bit of a difficulty in a book about nuclear power and nuclear bombs. I enjoyed a lot of this, but wouldn't recommend it.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating read! It was written in such a way as to be informative and entertaining for someone who is not a physicist; i.e. just a school science background. I devoured many of these chapters and couldn't wait to share the shocking facts with others. What a great and unique book.

[SueSue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as much fun as his book on atomic accidents--not as many stories of people doing dumb things with plutonium--but good nonetheless. The chapter on radionucleides as murder weapons was crazy stuff!

[Tim Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very readable and quite accessible overview of a number of topics in nuclear science, some amusing, some exciting or even inspiring, several chilling, and some of which made me very uncomfortable if not outright squeamish. Though at times it could be a little technical, the author overall did a great job in discussing a great many topics, ranging from how nuclear reactors work to how nuclear weapons work to the story of the search for cold fusion to the use of nuclear materials in various applications including terrorism, completely peaceful industrial applications, and to reach the planets and stars. There were many very interesting footnotes well worth reading and a large number of helpful and interesting photographs and diagrams. The author nicely walked the line between serious expert and skilled popular science presenter with a good and appropriate sense of humor and the deft use of the occasional pop culture reference, all while educating the reader in matters of history and science.

The opening section, the author’s note, discussed the history of the Georgia Tech Research Reactor, a well-told tale interspersing among other things an anecdote about Harry Houdini (who in 1915 performed a show near where the reactor would one day stand) and the author’s own experiences at the reactor.

The introduction, the next section, discussed hoaxes and dead ends in the fields of nuclear science, focusing primarily on Thomas Galen Hieronymus (and the Hieronymus Effect, a term that “is used to condemn a physical measurement in which a certain sensitivity of a human being is an essential component of the instrumentation” as well as the disproven field of psionics research) and the “N-rays illusion” (another example of the Hieronymus Effect, this time centering around a French professor of physics by the name of Prosper-Rene Blondlot and the “N-rays” he discovered). A very interesting section, I knew nothing about any of this prior to reading this book.

Continuing the theme of pseudoscience, hoaxes, and just bad science was the first official chapter in the book, chapter one, “Cry for Me, Argentina,” begins with a section discussing the impossibility of hydrogen fusion (after going into depth about what this is), noting that while “achieving hydrogen fusion is not difficult, doing it on a continuous basis at a rate that will generate new power, in which more power is recoverable from the reactions than goes into creating the fusion environment, seems beyond our current technical ability,” and that the Sun is able to produce proton-proton fusion (“which has an extremely low probability of happening, even in the best of conditions”) only because it is so big. Most of the chapter isn’t so much about physics or engineering as it is about the sad tale of “an obscure third-tier scientist, part of the human fallout left over after the smoke cleared in the defeat of Nazi Germany, Dr. Ronald Richter,” who managed to find a patron in Argentina in the form of Juan Domingo Peron and with his patronage constructed a secret facility on an island on a lake to pursue fusion research (the author recounting how Richter was either lying, delusional, or otherwise insane and how the project cost vast amounts of money and would never have produced what Richter claimed). The chapter was well written, showing how impossible currently it is to produce fusion, what Richter was trying to do (or claimed he was doing), all while telling a great human interesting story set in postwar Argentina.

Chapter two opened with another person with “an ability to sell a large, speculative experiment to an organization that has enough money to afford the risks, which is usually the government of a prosperous country,” in this case Dr. Edward Teller, who among other things was a huge force behind getting the Reagan administration to fund the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) and most especially Teller’s favorite project, the X-ray laser, designed to shoot down incoming Soviet missiles, with the author describing the many technical and legal issues ahead of ever making an X-ray laser space-based defense system work (among other things, “an X-ray laser weapon could only be used once, as it would vanish into a brightly glowing plasma cloud milliseconds after it was fired”).

Most of chapter two however is on the history and technology behind trying to develop nuclear powered aircraft, a field filled with enormous problems ranging from weight to the radiation shed by a nuclear powered aircraft (the latter most definitely non-trivial), with Mahaffey spending a large amount of time discussing the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory, including its role in developing the technology for nuclear powered aircraft, the facility’s history, and even what a Google Map user or urban explorer might discover should they investigate the now abandoned and sealed facility. There were nice maps, photographs, and footnotes noting what can be seen at various latitude/longitude coordinates on Google Earth.

Chapters three and four could have been a great book all by itself together (as in fairness so could several of the other chapters), discussing in a very vivid and very personal narrative the excitement and drama of starting in March 1989 when the world was told cold fusion had been achieved and the author and his colleagues attempts to replicate (based on some very incomplete information) the cold fusion experiment they first heard about on the MacNeil/Lehrer news report on public television. In vivid and page-turning detail the author detailed the whirlwind series of events relating to hearing the news, trying to set up the experiment, elation at possibly replicating the experiment, and then what happened when they discovered they had not in fact achieved cold fusion (with a good explanation why everyone had thought cold fusion had been achieved). A very well written couple of chapters, a great blend of the personal interest story with a good popular account of science and engineering.

Chapter five was an absolutely excellent chapter on the history of potentially using nuclear powered spacecraft. I had before reading this chapter thought such things were pipe dreams or fantastically unconcerned with the environmental impact of radiation from such craft, but after reading this chapter now see what a missed opportunity such craft represent and can appreciate why for so long this was seen as a dream worth pursuing. A lot is covered in this chapter, including why earlier concepts of using radium were discarded (radium energy release “could not be throttled down or turned off” and there just wasn’t enough radium in the world), why nuclear rockets were such an attractive option to begin with (a nuclear rocket has much more efficient use of its fuel than even the best chemical rockets; also chemical rockets can only be started once and their “only throttle setting is full thrust”), how integral at one point the nuclear rocket was to the space program (as part of a system that included a “reusable, chemical-rocket space shuttle [which] would lift passengers into low-Earth orbit, where they would transfer directly to the nuclear Moon shuttle or stop at the orbiting space station for a day of rest and briefing”), and the importance of the resignation of New Mexico senator Clinton P. Anderson (without his support the nuclear rocket program was canceled, which happened three days after he resigned).

Chapter six focused on how Abdul Qadeer (A.Q.) Khan spread nuclear technology to a number of countries the United States and the West prefer not have such technology (and also how Khan developed nuclear weapon technology for Pakistan).

Chapter seven was an absolutely fascinating chapter on the Japanese atomic weapon program during World War II. I had no idea how far they came to developing such weapons, nor that the Japanese had so many world renown experts (such as Hantaro Nagaoka, the father of Japanese physics and who inspired Ernest Rutherford to come up with a better model for the atom, Bunsaku Arakatsu, who studied under Einstein and also worked with Rutherford, and Hideki Yukawa, a later winner of the Nobel Prize in physics for predicting the existence of the meson particle). Also covered were Japanese understandings and espionage against the Manhattan Project (including the use of Spanish spies), and whether or not Japan actually tested a nuclear weapon off the coast of Korea in the final hours of the war (they didn’t but it is still an interesting story).

Chapter eight discussed other nuclear weapon projects , including various Nazi death-ray projects, a laser pistol developed late in the Cold War for Soviet cosmonauts in space (a working prototype had been built and was being tested but the project was abandoned in 1989), but most of the chapter is on industrial sources of radiation, briefly discussing their peaceful, intended use such as for medical diagnosis, sterilizing medical equipment, in smoke detectors, and to examine the quality of welds “in applications ranging from shipbuilding to the plumbing of a nuclear power plant,” but most of the chapter is on the ugly, murderous uses of industrial sources of radiation, a way of killing someone that can be 100 per cent lethal, killing someone who is unaware they are dying until too late, often in a slow, brutal, ugly, and painful manner. To be fair the misuse of industrial sources of radiation in this chapter aren’t all murder (though they are included and discussed in unflinching detail) but also from theft of radiation sources by ignorant scrap thieves (who could also endanger a great many people, including their families, neighbors, those they sell scrap to, medical workers that treat them, and clean up teams sent to their homes). It was at times a hard chapter to read, for those targeted with this type of radiation or came across it accidentally suffered terrible pain, disfigurement, and painful deaths. Also some of the incidents were basically true crime accounts, of people murdering or attempting to murder those close to them, including in one case a child.

Chapter nine continued the focus on radioactive materials in weapons, including coverage of the Topfmine, a Nazi mine “made of wood fiber, cardboard, glass, and wood” and invisible to a metal detector but detectable thanks to very low levels of radiation as “gritty inclusions in the paint were radioactive” so that hopefully the Nazis could later find and defuse their own mines, the saga of trying to get radiation detecting equipment for the troops on D-Day, and a long discussion of the realities, dangers, use of, and protection against dirty bombs, with some very effective discussion of the three things that determine the “dose effect of a concentrated source…time, distance, and shielding.” Surprisingly shielding and distance in some cases don’t have to be much, as in some cases paper or just a bit of air can be enough to shield against lethal amounts of radiation. Also some interesting discussion of Geiger counters and the rise and fall of uranium hunting mania in the United States immediately after World War II.

Chapter ten was a much happier chapter, detailing the use of nuclear science and technology to find evidence of alien civilizations, creating ansibles or other means of interstellar communication (with a somewhat dizzying discussion of such things as entangled photons), and the possibilities of nuclear powered interstellar traveler in a person’s lifetime, such as with the Bussard Interstellar Ramjet and the British Interplanetary Society’s Project Daedalus and Project Icarus.

Chapter eleven had a wild ending, discussing the real truth at Roswell, New Mexico (no, not aliens, but Project Mogul, which ended in 1949 but was important as a clandestine way to monitor Soviet nuclear tests and “pioneered polyethylene balloons, altitude maintenance by aerostat, and the infrasound megaphone”). Discussion of the project was fascinating, as was the explanations as to what observers saw as far as UFOs around the time of the Roswell crash (as well as the crash itself).

The book has an absolutely excellent bibliography as well as an index.

[Bryan Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This, like his previous book Atomic Accidents, is a fun read. Mahaffey does a very good job of translating hard to imagine nuclear concepts into plain English, yet he also leaves enough details so that someone with a nuclear background will also enjoy it.

This time the book focuses on the crazy ideas that were attempted using atomic power. The creation of death rays, and imaginative (and sometimes imaginary) ways to make power from the atom. It also spends a long time on the idea of cold fusion power. The author, Mahaffey, even played a personal part in that story.

One of my most favorite parts provides the most likely answer to the Roswell "flying saucer" crash I have ever read. I am surprised I had never heard it before but it makes a lot of sense.

All in all this was a fun read even though I liked the other one better. I will watch to see if he writes more like this and will certainly buy it and read it.

[Yibbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the sections of this book are hugely entertaining and informative. For me, those were the historical bits as I love learning random tidbits about history’s major events. So, learning the rumors about the Japanese attempt to develop nuclear power during WW2, the grand failure of Argentina’s nuclear island, or the gruesome details of various murders by radiation was really interesting. Even if he does take the long way round in getting to the actual nuclear event sometimes. That was particularly noticeable in that chapter about the Dawson Forest. I’m not sure it was really necessary to include the entire known history of the region to get the point. Still, once he was around to the experiments that poured enough radiation into the atmosphere that they couldn’t run them if the wind was wrong, it was worth reading.
I did find the extraordinarily detailed retelling of the author’s attempt to verify a claim of cold fusion rather less interesting than tales of espionage, murder, secrets, and discovery. That was aggravated by his choosing to include the exact name of various instruments he used, including the model number, and the minutest of details. I also found myself tuning out for sections as he delved into the technical details of quantum physics or chemistry. So I can say that I really enjoyed maybe 2/3 of it and being bored for the rest of it.
There were several curse words throughout the book.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would be lying if I said I were in a place where I wanted to talk about books at the moment. I mean, not sure if you were aware or not, but Jesus. Some shit went down in the Capitol building in Washington DC and, quite frankly, it has taken up most of my available brainspace.

In case you’re confused about what I’m talking about, a mob of thousands attacked the Capitol building with the intent of (allegedly) murdering and/or kidnapping members of the legislative branch, and declaring the loser of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election as King/President/Emperor. Or something. They managed (If reports are true) to murder a cop, accidently kill a fellow sympathizer/co-conspirator/seditionist, and have at least two attendees of the insurrection die in self-induced fatalities, and another die by officers defending the legislators as they breached the inner chambers.

What has me so shaken isn’t that the Capitol was attacked, although it was, and that was stunning, but that there is a significant minority of Americans that will explain what happened as patriots defending America from an illegitimate cabal of baby-eating-pedophile-lizard-people that stole the election from them.

That isn’t hyperbole.

As time passes, there are hints that some elected officials not only inflamed the rhetoric that created such ridiculous beliefs, but may have been providing strategic and logistical support for the insurrection.*

So, yeah, I’m… what do I say? How do I process this? I don’t know. I’ve not had the head to partake or enjoy much. When I need an escape from reality, I’ll watch a cartoon or something. But When I sit down to read, I’ll have to quickly end it because I’ll have spent 10 minutes staring at a page and not comprehending anything. Then I’m back to check for any new updates on the crumbling of our democracy.

Which is too bad. As I really loved this book, and had thoughts about it (I literally finished reading it on Jan 5, and was going to put up a review the next day, but you know, things happened).

Still, I’ll try, but my heart isn’t going to be in it.

The book is about nuclear physics. It hits the sweet spot for me because it has a lot of details, and also is chock full of ancecdotes about, well, everything. This book is equal parts terrifying, ironic, and inspiring.

A few quick thoughts as I read:

Curies, Becquerels, rads, grays, rems, sieverts and maybe a few other terms are used when discussing radioactivity, some are interchangeable, some are not. I listened to the audiobook version. I didn’t have a primer handy to check while I listened. This shit was hard to follow.

I didn’t get this from the book, but after reading and I was on the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website and learned that you get about the same amount of radiation exposure wearing a watch with a luminous dial as you would living next door to a nuclear power plant. Um, what? Either glowing dials are more dangerous than we’ve been led to believe, or living next Chernobyl, Fukishima, or Three-Mile-Island ain’t so bad. Seriously, WTF?

If you are exposed to radioactive materials, do take a shower ASAP, do wash your hair. Do NOT use conditioner. It will trap the radioactive material in your hair. Ew.

If you worked in… crap, I forgot, maybe the biological sciences, your were more likely to have someone try to murder you by radiation exposure than by gun.
The story of that dude that tried to murder his own son to get back at his wife for… something, was messed up. He ended up burning his kid us almost like he’d thrown him into a fire.

And scrap metal collectors: Be careful. A story is in this book about a group of scrap metal guys that stumbled upon a stored cache of spent uranium. One guy was dead within thirty minutes, others in the group took longer.

I’d consider pairing this book with Command and Control, which I read a few years ago, as completely true horror stories that should make you wet yourself in fear if you ever want to read them. This one is a more lighthearted look at the terrors nuclear power gives. With a few interesting digressions.

*I’d hoped that it would be a unifying moment for those of us that have been chilled by the conspiratorial and increasingly incoherent positions that thought leaders on the right end of the political spectrum have been espousing. You know, that maybe they’d realize they’ve taken it too far and it was time to back off. That was clearly the case for some, but not nearly enough, as the feel-good-come-together moment was gone by the next day.

In fact, the very night of the attack, one congressman was interviewed just hours after the Capitol was cleared of insurrectionists and he said he was pretty sure it was Antifa (a boogyman organization (short for Anti-Fascist) that supposedly infiltrates right wing events and ‘poses’ as normal citizens, then commits acts of violence to discredit said right-wing cause). This claim is made in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary, and is either a lie meant to confuse those that expect their elected leaders to be honest, or it’s the ravings of someone incapable of discerning fiction from reality.

In other words, the inflammatory, hate-filled, fantasy-based messaging that caused this mess… it isn’t going to stop. I’m afraid we’re fucked.

[Markus · Rating 2 out of 5]

some just mildly horrendous bits of history bump this down from fun but inconsequential

[Brahm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to beat Mahaffey's Atomic Accidents, but this was a great exploration into some of the wackier nuclear tales in his engaging writing style.

[Dan Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Largely little-known stories centered around atomic technologies, entertainingly told with amusing style. What's not to like?

[Russell Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You probably need to have a strong science interest and education to enjoy this book. The title should probably use the word misadventures, rather than adventures. It describes a number of nuclear projects, experiments, or cockamamie ideas that failed for one reason or another. Two chapters are spent on cold fusion, for example, an idea that the author himself admitted took him in long enough for him to "confirm" its existence, only to discover that the "proof" of its existence was simply an instrumentation error. The book is written with a degree of wit, especially in the numerous footnotes, which are often more entertaining than the main text.

I enjoyed the book and recommend it to the non-physicsphobic. I did catch one error in the book. In Chapter 10 he describes the three-filter phenomenon, which involves polarized filters. He says that if you take two polarized filters and rotate them 180 degrees to each other you will block out all light. He meant 90 degrees. He then goes on to say the third filter should be oriented at a 45 degree angle, halfway between the other two. 45 is halfway between 0 and 90, not 0 and 180.

[Lauren Pearce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is how science works - you pour money and resources into projects, some of them work, some of them don't. This is largely a list of the nuclear projects that didn't work. The mocking derisive tone towards these projects and implications that they never should have been funded to start with contradict with the nature of science. Cold fusion, x-ray lasers, nuclear propelled rockets, etc were legitimate fields of research that needed to be explored. They didn't work as hoped, but we learned from them. I also have to say the "in case of dirty bomb" chapter was unexpected, did not fit with the rest of the book, and was rather unwelcome

I did like the subject matter of the book and the author was somewhat skilled at explaining complex topics clearly. I don't regret spending the time to read it, but I did find myself anxious to finish it so I could get on to other things.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent romp through the world of nuclear physics. The author, while a highly technical person, is able to write about technical things so that anyone can understand. Plus a large dollop of humor tacked on for good measure.

Many of the stories are around science frauds or failures of one type or another. Well researched. Expect a lot of footnotes, over 200 are there. A lot of the humor is in those footnotes. I was laughing out loud at many of his descriptions of past experiments.

I knew a couple of the stories, the nuclear powered bomber & nuclear spacecraft engine, but the author filled in many scientific truths about each that I was lacking. I also found the explanation of the Roswell incident in 1947 quite detailed and believable. One of the themes through the book (cold fusion linking some of it) is how people, both technical & non-technical alike, can be lead astray through confirmation bias. Many times people want to believe that something is true, when the physics says it can't ever happen. Here the author works to poke holes in some of those beliefs, but have you laughing at the same time.

I'll look for the author's two previous books, as they sound fascinating.

[Thom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about many things related to fission and fusion, including the author's own part in replicating (and disproving) the spectacle of cold fusion in 1989. Told by one who knows his subject and includes great footnotes and references, this collection of incidents is recommended.

Some of the many incidents documented here include atomic action outside the United States around WWII, a would-be fusion reactor in Argentina, attempted murder using isotopes, and A.Q. Khan's nuclear nonsense in and around Pakistan. Among my favorite bits were research into a nuclear powered rocket (primarily for exploration of Mars), atomic weapons (including Soviet hand weapons!) and the breakdown of what really happened at Roswell NM (project Mogul).

But the strongest part of the book is how Mahaffey and the Georgia Institute of Technology were skeptical, then fooled, and then finally debunked cold fusion. The descriptions of what was happening are complete and accessible, and in addition were great reading. Though it looks like his other books cover many of the same topics, I still look forward to reading at least one of them soon.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started this I was kind of prepared not to be super impressed. I've read a lot about nuclear physics and kind of figured this wouldn't really cover any new ground, but I was actually pleasantly surprised! While Mahaffey does, of course, mention a lot of the big events in nuclear scientific history, his main focus is on the "oopsies"--those times we thought cold fusion was a totally doable way to get all the energy we could ever need. Or when we thought N-rays were a thing. Or aliums. I think the book should actually be called "Atomic Misadventures."

The thing that freaked me out the most was the entire chapter on all the people who have tried to murder other people or themselves with radioactive sources. Or just accidentally exposed themselves and their families to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much radiation by breaking in and stealing radioactive sources. That stuff was super crazy, and who the hell thinks radiation poisoning is a fun way to die?!? It made me super paranoid that if someone decides they don't like me they might just stick a radioactive source in the ceiling above my desk at work or something, but luckily, Mahaffey ALSO tells you how to use your phone as a gamma ray detector--sweet!

Anyway, I found it way more interesting and entertaining than I expected to!

[cellomerl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy books about science and history in general, and nuclear science in particular, especially when they’re written by an expert in the field instead of some journalist with an agenda. Nuclear power and atomic science has the potential to save the world and no amount of politics or fear changes fact. This book worked to further convince me.
This is fascinating stuff, and I learned a great deal from listening to this audiobook. I got a bit in lost the stuff about the mechanism of super luminal communication in aid of interplanetary travel, but that’s my fault, not his. It is not straightforward theory, and I was distracted by the mechanism of planting my tomatoes while I listened.

[Vfields Don't touch my happy! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, I watched Chernobyl the mini series and I was totally freaked out as we all should be.
So of course I needed more information about “that stuff”. So I found James Mahaffey’s little romp through the Atomic world. I couldn’t believe that I was able to keep up and understand what was going on and I laughed more than a few times. Mahaffy integrated his successes and failures with honest facts and humor, kudos.
All in all a big yes and I’m no longer freaked out.

[Isabel Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting anthology of atomic warfare, energy use, and experimentation in America and beyond. The citations gave extra insights and added credibility. Would need to re-read this several times before most information actually permeated my brain.

[Isabelle reads a book a day because she has no friends · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Damian Sowa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish I could give this book a higher rating. I do. I love the topic, and read heavily on the topic, particularly early atomic developments. But I couldn’t even finish this book in the 3 weeks I had it from the library. The author writes in a very pedantic style, and has hundreds of lengthy footnotes, one or more per page. If the information isn’t important enough to make it into the body of the story, don’t add it; the footnotes interrupt what little flow to the story there is. Could have been written in half the number of pages, at a far quicker pace.

[Lars Plougmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hodgepodge of stories, all of them about radiation or nuclear decay.

I especially enjoyed the author relating his personal experience of racing to replicate the Pons/Fleischmann cold fusion experiment. The book also has ample examples of governments pouring billions into futile pursuits, scientists falling in love with their theories and failing to employ the scientific method, and bad stuff humans have attempted to do with radioactive decay.

It was slightly disappointing that the book didn't have more examples of secret islands (see subtitle) and didn't go into detail with the high profile Litvinenko assisination.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book about little know atomic facts and projects. Who knew Japan was trying to develop an atomic bomb! Except for the last chapter we are subjected to very little scientific jargon. The book is clear and precise. Good job.