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Product Description
A small boy with a book, high up in a tree. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
The author writes about the second World War, music, the space program, nuclear testing, the scientific engineering that produced the atom bomb and later commercial reactors. Each subject is treated from a strong moral and human standpoint, which is very unexpected from a man who on the "About the Author"-page is described as a professor of Physics at Princeton.
The book contains some revelations, at least for me. Things I didn't know and am shocked to learn now, so long after the fact. For example, page 98 quote: "...engineered safety [in a reactor] was not good enough.' He asked us to design a reactor with 'inherent safety', meaning that its safety must be guaranteed by the laws of nature and not merely by the details of its engineering. It must be safe even in the hands of an idiot clever enough to by-pass the entire control system and blow out the control rods with dynamite." The shocking information here is that such a reactor type is feasible and has been built on a small scale. But all later adopted power reactors used a design that did not live up to this standard. Why? It's cheaper to build an unsafe reactor.
He describes how the research and development of nuclear reactors, because of the large inherent dangers, very quickly moved out of the reach of amateur engineering. This also took the fun out of the research, and this meant that real research has not been taken to full results. As a consequence reactors today are by design immature and not as safe as they could be. I feel lucky that I'm personally working in a field (software engineering) where this has not happened yet and is not likely to happen soon. So we can still engineer with some freedom and some fun, thereby producing better quality and intrinsically better designs, even if not always the cheapest and quickest.
The author also poses that spacetravel need not be expensive if released from the control of governments and given over to the pioneering spirit of small groups of individuals. And this is backed up with some reasoning and calculations, which may or may not be realistic. But the idea is there.
Very worth reading and a lot of food for thought.
Dyson begins by writing about his childhood, but even then, the reader can sense that Dyson's perspective encompasses far more than childhood events, as he mentions a favorite children's story in which the hero finds that his toys have come to life and run amuck; a constant theme in the book is that of responsibility for one's scientific discoveries.
Dyson continues with stories about his involvement in RAF Bomber Command during WWII, where he learned the ineffectualness of strategic bombing. But soon Dyson begins branching out from his personal life to address issues such as the search for extraterrestial intelligence, nuclear disarmament, and the role of science and religion.
His words are laced with compassion, as he speaks of the wrongs he has seen committed, very rarely with anger, although he has certainly more than earned that right! One thing that especially struck me over and over is the profound wisdom that this man has. This is a man who would appear a paradox: a seeker of peace yet utterly realistic, a rational scientist yet devoutly religious. You will not be able to resolve this apparent contradiction unless you read this book! And then you will want to read it again. I certainly did.
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