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 Light from a different direction! July 16, 2006
Palle E T Jorgensen (Iowa City, Iowa United States)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Recently, in theatres in London and New York, the public was treated to the drama "Copenhagen," by British playwright Michael Frayn, and it revisited the theme of this now old book. The play was about a visit in September 1941 by the then young German physicist Werner Heisenberg to his mentor and dear friend Niels Bohr in Nazi-occupied Denmark. So a detail in a bigger picture, but still a key detail!
The wider subject of Robert Jungk's book is a biographical sketch of the pioneers in nuclear physics, the individual scientist who built the atomic bomb (the time before Hiroshima and Nagasaki), or whose theories were instrumental. The debate about the history, the science, and its implications of the nuclear bomb started after World War II, and it is important to remember that nuclear scientists worked on both sides of this conflicts. Now with hindsight, the Cold War, and nuclear proliferation have taken centre stage, but back in 1956 when Robert Jungk's book first appeared, World War II was still casting a big shadow on events and on the debate about nuclear deterrence. In my opinion Robert Jungk's book was one of the first serious attempts at a general account on what was clearly a watershed in history, a series of events that are shaping our lives even today. Since 1956, Robert Jungk's book was reprinted many times, and many more related books appeared.
Jungk's book is interesting in that it paints a vivid portrait of such scientists as Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, and other leading physicists at the time, and on both sides of that conflict.
What is interesting now is to view Robert Jungk's book in the light of Michael Frayn's play, and especially in light of newly released papers on the Niels Bohr archives in 2002, following the wide attention given to Michael Frayn's version of the 1941 meeting in Copenhagen. The 2002 addition to Niels Bohr's archives is a deposit comprising documents either dictated or written by Niels Bohr referring to what was said at the fateful 1941 meeting.
Michael Frayn's play makes it clear that the two Bohr and Heisenberg were very close both scientifically and personally, and that the 1941 meeting changed all of that. Both men were devastated!
Heisenberg was a leading scientific advisor to the German government in post WWII Europe; and yet he spent the rest of his life attempting to put his spin on his war work; his work on a nuclear bomb for Hitler, or perhaps rather denying these efforts. Niels Bohr who died in 1962 had been extraordinarily tight lipped about his meeting with Heisenberg in 1941. So while the newly released letters supplement and confirm previously published statements of Bohr's recollections of the meeting, especially those of his son, Aage Bohr, this part of the story is not well known, and especially not to Robert Jungk. The letters are from Niels Bohr to Heisenberg, and they are interesting for many reasons, not least of which is that they were never mailed, and so their contents were never known to Heisenbrg. Quoting from one of Bohr's letters to Heisenberg: "--- I think that I owe it to you to tell you that I am greatly amazed to see how much your memory has deceived you in your letter to the author [Robert Jungk] of the book ["Brighter than a thousand suns"],---." Review by Palle Jorgensen, July 2006.
 A little dry but good April 1, 2005
M Atkins
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Robert Jungk’s Brighter than a Thousand Suns encompasses one of the most recent subjects in Physics, Atomic Energy. He begins by describing the Environment the most prominent physicists were educated in, Gottingen University in Germany, although an insight into the lives of these emerging physicists was well depicted, I felt that it was little too much background information and not enough explanations of the developments these budding physicists generated. The pattern of excessive background information seems to continue throughout the book, but there is much valuable information to be had throughout the book. The book covers everything from the plethora of atomic physicists sprouting after the First World War to the Manhattan Project and J. Robert Oppenheimer’s trial that removed him from his lofty position at the head of America’s Atomic Energy Commission. This book presents good information, but it is not very accessible as it was written by a German Physicist and later translated into English, and an immense interest in the topic is required to appreciate it.
Illuminated portrait ! October 29, 2004
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This a clear and terrible book. It can be considered as one of the most complete compelling and passionate works about the most chilling decision in the mankind story . the moral and politic story of the atomic scientists or the underground account of what happened among stage sceneries while the atomic finding and the construction of the atomic weapons . An impressing gallery where you will finf the famous and glorious names osuch as Niels Bohr , Oppenheimer , Heisenberg , Rutherford, Enrico Fermi , Szilard , Dirac , Joliot Curie , Kapitza , Otto Hahn , Weizacker their political approach , from Hitler to Roosvelt and Truman .
Jungk presnts us the collective drama of the atomic energy and the responsibility of the scientists who wishing or not they finally finished accepting the tragicg fate and the ethical dilemma .
The fir4st part is an account which reveals how gradually at early 1939 , many of them were frightened about the final consequences of their discovery , but in the other hand the suspect the german scientists could be capable of making the expected weapon under Hitler service .
Then the author explores the work of the German scientists around the atom fission , the intensive and unfinished stages work in U.K. and U.SA. under the Oppenheimer control, Los Alamos review and the famous July 16 , the countless Szilard and Frank efforts for preventing and avoid the use of the Atomic Bomb over Japan absolutely useless as all we know .
This book shows us how the science has created its own world having lost of any moral force to oppose the development of the most destructive weapons .
The moral crossroad of a notable group of men who escaping from a demolisher oppressive nazi regime fell under a new form of destructor power of its own individuality , freedom and conscience
To have an absolute domain of that complex web I recommend to acquire The great decision whose author is Michael Amrine..
A must for any kind of reader , no matter your job is .
 Very interesting and easy to read October 31, 2003
Keith Appleyard (Brighton, UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was written nearly 50 years ago in the 1950's, so naturally some of the stories are incomplete with todays hindsight, but I wish I'd read this book 20 years ago. It is extremely well written, and full of fascinating anecdotes. Although I am familiar with many of the characters & stories, there was something new for me in every chapter, for example the insights into Oppenheimer in Germany before WWII. It would be wonderful if a revised version could be published incorporating the story of the Soviet Atom Scientists.
 Historical Revisionism at its worst August 24, 2002
Tony (Moorpark, CA United States)
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
While an easy to read book, Jungk presents some false information that depreciates the value of the book. The first is the impression that Von Weisacker and other German scientists attempted to give to the post war world, that they were not really trying to build a bomb, but were merely interested in nuclear power. This is refuted by Jeremy Bernstein, in his book "Hitler's Uranium Club." The historical record shows that there were many memorandums sent to the German Military, by the scientists, about the possibility of producing an atomic bomb. The more serious misstatement however, is about Klaus Fuchs' espionage on the Manhattan Project which was the most damaging espionage committed by any of the atomic spies of that era. Jungk claims that Fuchs decided to spy for the Soviet Union when he learned about plans to bomb Hiroshima. This is so off base that one has to question Jungk's scholarship or motives. Here is why: Fuchs began spying for the Soviets in 1941 in Britain, before Pearl Harbor and before there was even a Manhattan Project. The decision to acutally bomb Hiroshima was made in 1945. None of the scientists know what the targets were. This is such a huge distortion of the facts that it should be mentioned in any review of this book. The book has lots of details but if you buy it, beware of some of the downright distortions of history. A better choice is Richard Rhodes's book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb".
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