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Here's a limited-distribution book about nuclear bombs, written by a Wisconsin truck driver on his spare time. It's self-published, printed at Kinko's, personally signed and shipped by the author. It costs $50. Anyone who thinks I lost my mind or enjoy sponsoring Amateur Hour should consider this: found to be a threat because of its accuracy, Atom Bombs by John Coster-Mullen was immediately removed from the Los Alamos National Laboratory library and banned from the National Atomic Museum gift shop under orders from Sandia National Laboratory. At the same time, it is also used by instructors at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School (Kirtland AFB) and others. The author is "well-known to the Feds" -- the ultimate government seal of quality.
In the great tradition of Chuck Hansen and his book U.S. Nuclear Weapons, Coster-Mullen used every available public domain source to achieve what is the most amazingly accurate technical and historical reference on America's earliest nuclear weapon designs. He also did this by interviewing every surviving scientist, pilot and technician involved with the project, back in the 1990s. He traveled the world, from Tinian to Wendover, Hiroshima, London, Washington, Los Alamos and elsewhere, to collect documentation and cross-reference every bit of information. He partially disassembled and inspected the internal components of remaining bomb casings with a bore-scope, to come up with exact measurements of tampers, pits, initiators, implosion lenses and every other weapon component. He even built a Little Boy replica in his garage. Following this, the Department of Energy took these bombs out of museums and "sanitized" them at great expense.
The result is a most incredible book, with over 400 pages of fascinating information, photographs and drawings, all of which explain and demystify the principles and inner workings of weapons that changed the world. Everything you ever wanted to know is in here. As someone who feels equations are mostly useful as sleeping aids, I was pleased to find virtually none in this book. Entirely written in plain English, everything is clear, compelling and highly informative. I was unable to put this book down until the very last page. The only disappointment for me is that building my very own nuclear weapons (exclusively for fun, as a hobby, of course) is still somewhat out of reach.
Highly recommended.
In the great tradition of Chuck Hansen and his book U.S. Nuclear Weapons, Coster-Mullen used every available public domain source to achieve what is the most amazingly accurate technical and historical reference on America's earliest nuclear weapon designs. He also did this by interviewing every surviving scientist, pilot and technician involved with the project, back in the 1990s. He traveled the world, from Tinian to Wendover, Hiroshima, London, Washington, Los Alamos and elsewhere, to collect documentation and cross-reference every bit of information. He partially disassembled and inspected the internal components of remaining bomb casings with a bore-scope, to come up with exact measurements of tampers, pits, initiators, implosion lenses and every other weapon component. He even built a Little Boy replica in his garage. Following this, the Department of Energy took these bombs out of museums and "sanitized" them at great expense.
The result is a most incredible book, with over 400 pages of fascinating information, photographs and drawings, all of which explain and demystify the principles and inner workings of weapons that changed the world. Everything you ever wanted to know is in here. As someone who feels equations are mostly useful as sleeping aids, I was pleased to find virtually none in this book. Entirely written in plain English, everything is clear, compelling and highly informative. I was unable to put this book down until the very last page. The only disappointment for me is that building my very own nuclear weapons (exclusively for fun, as a hobby, of course) is still somewhat out of reach.
Highly recommended.
