This story appeared in the September/October 2020 of Discover magazine as "What We're Reading." We hope you’ll subscribe to Discover and help support science journalism at a time when it’s needed the most.
By Steve Olson
On Aug. 9, 1945, an atomic bomb carrying 13 pounds of plutonium was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. Six days later, Japan surrendered, ending World War II. Science writer Olson builds a gripping story around the oft-forgotten factory where that plutonium was produced: the Hanford nuclear production complex in Washington state. The plutonium made at Hanford didn’t just bring the war to a close, Olson argues — it forever changed the world we live in.
When certain types of atoms are split apart, it creates a chain reaction that generates the massive amounts of energy needed to power an atomic bomb. It’s only fitting, then, that the book’s narrative is itself a chain ...
