Big Science

May 4, 2015
Ernest Lawrence may have been overlooked by history in favor of contemporaries like Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Fermi, but his impact on modern science is undeniable. In this dual history of Lawrence and the movement he single-handedly brought into being, Hiltzik (The New Deal), a business columnist at the Los Angeles Times, explains how Lawrence’s postwar research exceeded the budgets of universities and philanthropic foundations, necessitating government patronage. Lawrence’s first cyclotron, a device intended to energize subatomic protons in order to allow them to penetrate the nuclei of atoms, was a breakthrough for nuclear physics and also changed the way science was performed. In order to understand ever-smaller subatomic particles, Lawrence was ironically pressed to build increasingly larger and more expensive apparatus. His machines won him a Nobel Prize in 1939 and also helped the Allies win WWII: Lawrence’s Radiation Lab in Berkeley, Calif., provided much of the staff and materials used to develop the atomic bomb. Hiltzik demonstrates profound ambivalence about the consequences of the rise of the military-industrial complex—both its expense and its complicity in the nuclear arms race are problematic—but his portrait of Lawrence, who gave birth to the modern research lab through sheer force of will, is powerful nonetheless. Photos.

Starred review from May 15, 2015
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. In mercifully nontechnical language, Hiltzik unfolds the conceptual significance of the discoveries Lawrence made with his colleagues on his way to winning the Nobel Prize, filling in blanks on the Periodic Table, explaining the behavior of deuterons. Readers learn why some of Lawrence's breakthroughs mattered only for theoreticians, while others paved the way to life-saving medical treatments and world-threatening military weapons. Readers feel again the intense Cold War fears stirred by the weaponry Lawrence helped to unleash, particularly as they revisit the historic proceedings that stripped Lawrence's colleague Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance. In the way Lawrence's signature project became enveloped in military-security issues, Hiltzik discerns one of many indications that the Big Science Lawrence initiated inevitably entangles scientists in troubling political maneuvers and dubious financial calculations. The continuing relevance of such issues will ensure a wide readership for this biographical inquiry into their origins.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2015
Europe's Large Hadron Collider cost more than $10 billion, paid for by a consortium of nations. Its success owes much to charismatic physicist Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958), who invented the cyclotron, the Collider's ancestor.Los Angeles Times business columnist Hiltzik (The New Deal: A Modern History, 2011, etc.) attempts to combine Lawrence's biography with the revolutionary consequences of his invention. He succeeds superbly with the biography. After 1900, scientists explored the atom by bombarding targets with feeble streams of particles from radioactive elements such as radium. Researchers yearned for means to produce more particles with higher energies. In the late 1920s, Lawrence conceived of an electromagnet and oscillating electric charge that accelerated protons around a device the size of a breadbox. After several years' labor, mostly by brilliant, often unpaid graduate students, and huge (for the 1930s) expense, a functioning cyclotron began spewing out particles. By the early '30s, Lawrence was famous; in 1939, he won the Nobel Prize in physics. During World War II, he was a central figure in the Manhattan project and the development of the atom bomb. Afterward, he became a proponent of the hydrogen bomb and a polarizing Cold War figure, although his advocacy of bigger cyclotrons remained undiminished. Except for an epilogue, Hiltzik ends with Lawrence's death in California. Decades later, "Big Science"-i.e. wildly expensive, often government financed-continues to flourish. The author disapproves of its proliferation for the usual unconvincing reason-that it diverts money from more worthy endeavors, such as small science, education, and social programs. In fact, when massive projects such as America's superconducting supercollider are cancelled, the money often never goes to worthy programs; it usually disappears. A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done.

February 1, 2015

Since his creation in the late 1920s of the cyclotron, which revolutionized nuclear physics, Nobel Prize winner Ernest Lawrence went on to build ever larger models and to advocate for Big Science--the idea that the big machines and big money needed to crack open the secrets of the universe require government (and eventually business) sponsorship. Los Angeles Times business columnist Hiltzik should understand the implications; he won a Pulitzer Prize for cowriting a series on corruption in the entertainment industry.

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