دانلود کتاب Star Warriors: A Penetrating Look Into the Lives of the Young Scientists Behind Our Space Age Weaponry

"Reveals the world and work of the physicists and mathematicians of California's Livermore Lab, focusing on their endeavors to achieve breakthroughs that would make "star wars" weaponry a reality"

"Broad, New York Times science writer, spent a week in May 1984 at the Livermore Laboratory in California, the nuclear facility that inspired President Reagan's Star Wars proposal. His interviews with the young scientists who are pioneering x-ray lasers, particle beams, and supercomputers provide the basis for his conclusions. He discovered a technological free-for-all where the researchers do not always appreciate the military application of their creations. If they do, they assume that their efforts will provide a technical fix to the arms race. Political solutions become secondary. Broad also confirms the fears of many, finding that Star Wars cannot provide a 100-percent leakproof defensive shield and that, therefore, it will lead to a renewed arms race. A timely book, highly recommended. Dennis Felbel, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg"

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These are the young scientists of Livermore Laboratory — physics & math geniuses conducting the most far-reaching nuclear experiments since the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Their work on the development of third generation weapons with powerful beams meant to flash through the heavens at the speed of light destroying enemy missiles inspired President Reagans Star Wars proposal. The author takes us into their world as they labor to bring this vision to fruition. Theirs is an eerie skunk works where all-night bouts of research are conducted with the most sophisticated instruments on earth."

"Star Warriors is a detailed look at a very strange group of people in a very strange place. O Group was a small team of about twenty to forty scientists, most in their mid-20s, mostly white, mostly with Caltech and MIT pedigrees, and all male, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in 1985. Under the direction of Lowell Wood, O Group worked on applications for third generation nuclear weapons, primarily the "Star Wars" missile defense project based around bomb pumped X-ray lasers. The team also dabbled in supercomputer programming, fusion research, and starship design. Broad uses a week of interviews with O Group to provide flesh to what's often an abstract debate about nuclear strategy and technology policy.

The picture that emerges is of an elite scientific team, sharply competitive with each other and hand-picked by Lowell Wood through his control of the Hertz Fellowship (Wood was in line to succeed Edward Teller as director of LLL before a classification scandal broke his career momentum). What drives these people is the desire to be the best, to prove it mathematically, as when the soul of the group, Peter Hagelstein, made the key calculations that proved X-ray lasers were possible. These are no political naifs, but hardened Cold Warriors who see the Soviet Union as fundamentally evil, and their work as a way to gain a strategic edge. Unlike Reagan, who imagined a perfect shield, they know the limits of any system, and believe that the possibility of merely blunting a nuclear strike might prevent escalation to nuclear war, and that forcing the Soviets to compete on defense would further drain their resources. But above all else, it seems to be the coolness of the physics, of the way that the basic laws of reality break down at a thermonuclear shock front, and how that energy can be harnessed to make dreams real.

Over 30 years on, Star Warriors is a historical curiosity. It still stands as a fascinating look at some very interesting scientists, right next to The Soul of a New Machine. "

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/william-j-broad-david-masello-interview