Physicist and former New Yorker staff writer Bernstein presents a scientifically rigorous
(equations and all) but clearly written explanation of the recondite reasons why plutonium
is supremely suited for bomb-making material . and little else. From the discovery of uranium
in 1789 to the Manhattan Project, Nazi attempts at a nuclear bomb and the post-WWII efforts
of the U.S.S.R. to become a nuclear power, Bernstein reviews the element's storied past.
Although the discovery of the atom's structure has been covered before, Bernstein spins an
accessible, insightful description of how the great scientists Curie, Bohr, Rutherford and
Fermi, among others, deconstructed the atom through a combination of individual brilliance,
a spirit of collaboration and serendipity. He also brings his acquaintance with several Los
Alamos scientists (he interned at the laboratory in 1957) to the less canonical subject of
the scientific and engineering problems inherent to building a working nuclear bomb. Here
the search for the elusive element comes to center stage in this challenging but rewarding
account (after 2005's Secrets of the Old One; Einstein, 1905).

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