Fusion
The Search for Endless Energy

This is the story of the international race to build the first atomic fusion reactor.

Robin Herman (Author)

9780521024952, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 March 2006

280 pages, 17 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.415 kg

'This is a book that once started demands to be read in one sitting.' Physics World

Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy is the story of the international race to build the first atomic fusion reactor. It is the story of a fraternity of scientists, whose members included such greats as Andrei Sakharov and Edward Teller. Transcending political boundaries, their utopian mission was to create a source of safe, clean, inexhaustible energy from the elements of seawater. The book abounds with fascinating anecdotes about fusion's rocky path. Aimed at a general audience, the book describes the scientific basis of controlled fusion - the fusing of atomic nuclei, under conditions hotter than the sun, to release energy. Using personal recollections of scientists involved, the book traces the history of this little-known international race that began during the Cold War in secret laboratories in the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union, and evolved into an astonishingly open collaboration between East and West.

Acknowledgments
1. The invention of Dr Spitzer
2. Behind closed doors
3. Friends and rivals
4. Searching for answers
5. Dawn of the tokamak
6. Building big science
7. Forming the major league
8. The political plasma
9. The modern fusion lab
10. The plasma olympics
11. Different directions
12. Struggling to sell fusion
13. In sight of breakeven
14. Fusion's past and future
Notes
Glossary
Appendices
Index.

Subject Areas: Physics [PH]