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the written records, correcting the Energy Commission discovered that ura­ Historians and selective memories of the people who did nium prospecting was a more productive the work. On the question of why the way of building up stocks of nuclear fuel. scientists Berkeley Bevatron was built, Heilbron, a Cloud chambers, emulsions and Geiger counters were the principal particle detec­ David J. Miller historian, lists a complex of reasons, all of which were true at the time for some of tors for cosmic-ray work in 1947. By 1963, those participating in the decision. The accelerators had almost completely taken Pions to Quarks: Particle Physics in the particle physicists claim it was for the sake over, the bubble chamber had arrived, 1950s. Edited by Laurie M. Brown, Max of pure science, in particular to find the spark chambers were growing in impor­ Dresden and Lillian Hoddeson. Cam• antiproton. But the Atomic Energy tance and new scintillating materials were bridge University Press: 1990. Pp. 734. Commission was also concerned to keep being used. There are first-hand accounts £40, $59.50. together Lawrence's team from the of how each of these techniques evolved. "Manhattan Engineering District" that Electronic computers began to appear "THE 1950s" are deemed to start in 1947 developed the atomic bomb, and to train and are mentioned in a few of the and end in 1963: from the discovery that the next generation of weapons research contributions, particularly in Luis pions, not muons, are the Yukawa par­ physicists. At about the same time, the Alvarez's dashing account of how he took ticles that carry the nuclear interaction, to Lawrence Livermore Laboratory was Glazer's idea of a small 'clean' glass the firm establishment of SU(3) theory. separated from the Lawrence Berkeley bubble chamber, applied large-scale This was the exploration stage of particle Laboratory to build the first stage of a engineering and organizational methods physics, containing a succession of sur­ huge linear accelerator - the MTA, or and founded the 'industrialized' particle prises. Almost as soon as the pion had Materials Testing Accelerator - intended physics of the 1960s and 70s. Galison, a been identified in the cosmic radiation, to produce fissionable materials for wea­ historian, points out that Alvarez had to the first strange-particle decays were seen. pons. Blewett, writing about how Brook­ pull some of the cryogenic experts he The idea of a weak interaction was devel­ haven managed to get the Cosmotron needed out of the H-bomb programme to oped, with associated production and ready before the Berkeley Bevatron, says help him build his 72-inch liquid-hydrogen strangeness. The interaction carried by "We knew nothing about this project; bubble chamber, starting a line of the pion turned out to be too strong for the it was completely secret. . . . . So far development in which particle physics perturbation calculations that worked for as we could see, for no visible reason, laboratories still lead the world - particu­ electromagnetism, so dispersion relations construction of the Bevatron stopped and larly in the large-scale application of and S-matrix theory drove out field its staff disappeared. We asked no ques­ superconductivity. theories for more than a decade. The big­ tions, but were thankful for the decreased This is not only an important book, it is gest surprise of all was the discovery of pressure." The historian Seidel gives more great fun to read. Every physicist should parity violation - first hinted at by the details of the MTA project, started in ~w. D properties of what we now call K mesons, response to the first Soviet nuclear bomb. David J. Miller is in the Department of Physics then proved in nuclear beta-decay. It never worked properly and was and Astronomy, University College London, The backbone of this book is provided eventually abandoned when the Atomic Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK. by the reminiscences of the physicists who did the work, complemented by contri­ butions from professional historians of science. The right pieces of the story are told by the right people, among them Rochester, Perkins, Yang, Hofstadter, Chironex fleckeri (Southcott) Steinberger, Pais, Pontecorvo, Treiman, is probably the most danger• Dalitz, Marshak, Schweber, Gell-Mann, ous marine animal known, Nambu and Ne'eman. Reines discusses causing death in seconds to minutes. This specimen was the observation of the neutrino, Cham­ found near Cairns, Queens• berlain the antiproton, and Chew hadron land in Australia, and is one democracy. There is a great deal of pas­ of many species illustrated sion in many of the accounts, and much in Dangerous and Venomous setting the record straight - sometimes Marine Animals of the World, unselfishly, as when Blewett and others whose second, revised edi• give credit to the self-taught Greek, tion has recently been pub• Nicholas Christofilos, who invented the lished. The author, Bruce story focusing principle ahead of all the Halstead, has produced a huge and comprehensive specialists. But there are two epic pieces monograph of 1,168 pages of axe-grinding from great men who still of text and 288 of illustra• do not feel that they got the credit they tions. Publisher is Darwin, deserved - Piccioni, who claims he told New Jersey. Together with Chamberlain and Segre how to search for P. S. Auerbach and D. Camp• the antiproton at the Berkeley Bevatron, bell, Halstead has also just and Sudarshan, who says that he and written Dangerous Marine Marshak presented a paper on V-A Animals, a lavishly illus• weak-interaction theory at Padova a few trated colour atlas published by Wolfe Medical, price months before the work of Feynmann and $29.50. Gell-Mann appeared. The historians' contributions are useful, particularly in putting the development of accelerators into their political context in the United States at the height of the cold war, and in their critical examination of 488 NATURE · VOL 345 · 7 JUNE 1990 © 1990 Nature Publishing Group