Lawrence and His Laboratory: A History of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Volume I

California Studies in the History of Science

by J.L. Heilbron, Robert W. Seidel

The Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, California, was the birthplace of particle accelerators, radioisotopes, and modern big science. This first volume of its history is a saga of physics and finance in the Great Depression, when a new kind of science was born.

Here we learn how Ernest Lawrence used local and national technological, economic, and manpower resources to build the cyclotron, which enabled scientists to produce high-voltage particles without high voltages. The cyclotron brought Lawrence forcibly and permanently to the attention of leaders of international physics in Brussels at the Solvay Congress of 1933. Ever since, the Rad Lab has played a prominent part on the world stage.

The book tells of the birth of nuclear chemistry and nuclear medicine in the Laboratory, the discoveries of new isotopes and the transuranic elements, the construction of the ultimate cyclotron, Lawrence's Nobel Prize, and the energy, enthusiasm, and enterprise of Laboratory staff. Two more volumes are planned to carry the story through the Second World War, the establishment of the system of national laboratories, and the loss of Berkeley's dominance of high-energy physics.

Genres: History, Science

586 pages, Hardcover

First published December 20, 1989

Reviews

[Timothy]

Essential study of American physics between the world wars. The authors deftly blend hard science and history into this study of the Lawrence Laboratory at Berkeley. Caveat - At times the writing is dense be prepared to have your knowledge of quantum and nuclear physics at hand!

[Marie]

Wow, this was more of a "detailed history of atomic physics from 1930-1950" than an LBL history. I gave it 4 stars because I'll likely be the only rating in a while and it really did have a plethora of information in...but sometimes I skimmed...a lot of times. All in all a bit dry for the basic reader but if you're a physics nerd, why not?