Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Los Angeles Times contributor, the untold story of how science went big, built the bombs that helped World War II, and became dependent on government and industry and the forgotten genius who started it all, Ernest Lawrence. Since the 1930s, the scale of scientific endeavors has grown exponentially. Machines have become larger, ambitions, bolder. The first particle accelerator cost less than one hundred dollars and could be held in its creators palm, while its descendant, the Lard Hadron Collider, cost ten billion dollars and is seventeen miles in circumference. Scientists have invented nuclear weapons, put a man on the moon, and examined nature at the subatomic scale all through Big Science, the industrial-scale research paid for by governments and corporations that have driven the great scientific projects of our time. The birth of Big Science can be traced to Berkeley, California, nearly nine decades ago, when a resourceful young scientist with a talent for physics and an even greater talent for promotion pondered his new invention and declared, I'm going to be famous! Ernest Orlando Lawrences cyclotron would revolutionize nuclear physics, but that was only the beginning of its impact. It would change out understanding of the basic building blocks of nature. It would help win World War II. Its influence would be felt in academia and international politics. It was the beginning of Big Science. This is the incredible story of how one invention changed the world and of the man principally responsible for it all. Michal Hiltzik tells the riveting story here for the first time.

About the Author :
Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for twenty years. In that time he has served as a financial and political writer, an investigative reporter, and a foreign correspondent in Africa and Russia. He currently serves as the Times' business columnist. His other books include Colossus, The Plot Against Social Security, Dealers of Lightning, and A Death in Kenya. He received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry. Among his other awards for excellence in reporting are the 2004 Gerald Loeb Award for outstanding business commentary and the Silver Gavel from the American Bar Association for outstanding legal reporting. A graduate of Colgate University, he received a master of science degree in journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in 1974. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two children. Bob Souer is a full-time professional storyteller, voice actor, and AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has narrated broadcast and nonbroadcast projects for corporations and ministries across North America. His voice has been heard on PBS, the History Channel, the Military Channel, and many other networks. He has also narrated radio and television programs for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, D. James Kennedy Ministries, SIM, and Compassion International.

Review :
"[Hiltizk's] portrait of [Ernest] Lawrence, who gave birth to the modern research lab through sheer force of will, is powerful." -- "Publishers Weekly" "A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done." -- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)" "Michael Hiltzik tells an epic story, one with arenas of tragedy as well as triumph, and he tells it well." -- "Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian" "When the young Berkeley physics professor Ernest Lawrence first envisioned what he called a 'proton merry-go-round, ' he recognized its potential to revolutionize science. Hiltzik here tells the fascinating story of how this exceptional scientist won support for his epoch-making research tool and then assembled and managed an unprecedented team of experts who used that tool to penetrate subatomic mysteries." -- "Booklist (starred review)"