Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy

by Robin Herman

The book abounds with fascinating anecdotes about fusion's rocky path: the spurious claim by Argentine dictator Juan Peron in 1951 that his country had built a working fusion reactor, the rush by the United States to drop secrecy and publicize its fusion work as a propaganda offensive after the Russian success with Sputnik; the fortune Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione sank into an unconventional fusion device, the skepticism that met an assertion by two University of Utah chemists in 1989 that they had created "cold fusion" in a bottle. Aimed at a general audience, the book describes the scientific basis of controlled fusion--the fusing of atomic nuclei, under conditions hotter than the sun, to release energy. Using personal recollections of scientists involved, it traces the history of this little-known international race that began during the Cold War in secret laboratories in the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and evolved into an astonishingly open collaboration between East and West.

Genres: Physics

280 pages, Hardcover

First published October 26, 1990

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

History of fusion from 1950's - end of 1980's. Really interesting read about the hurdles/false alarms and wins we had during the last century in the scramble to try and make fusion for energy.

Only thing that bugged me was the random picture a few pages into each chapter that seemed to be unrelated to the text on that page! Can't win at everything I guess.

If you are interested in fusion, you'll enjoy this for sure. Just need to find a book that fills in the gap of the last 30 years now...any recommendations welcome!

[Dipanshu Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

More about the story, which is a bit meh. Would have been better with more technical details about fusion