A collection of essays by a Nobel Prize Laureate on a wide range of critical issues facing the world, and the role of scientists in solving these problems. Kendall has been closely involved with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that began as an informal assocation at MIT in 1969 to protest US involvement in Vietnam and is today an organization with an annual budget exceeding $6 million, with 100,000 supporters worldwide. UCD is today a voice of authority in US government science policy, particularly with regard to environment issues, most recently the worldwide initiatives on global...

As the head of the theory group at Los Alamos, Hans A. Bethe played a

"Blurb & Contents" Frank von Hippel has been at the forefront of those scientists grappling with the troubled legacy of our Nuclear Age. Von Hippel offers insights about the choices we must make and how science can help us to make them. Topics include nuclear power, atomic weapons, disarmament, energy and the future of automobiles. The scientist's role in public life and the importance of "making trouble" is emphasized. Of interest to physicists, particularly those working in nuclear physics, policy makers, environmentalists and those concerned with nuclear disarmament and the role of science...

"Blurb & Contents" A select group of top Soviet and American specialists reports in this volume from the frontiers of chaos and nonlinear science. The papers grew out of the rest of a series of annual conferences organized by the American Institute of Physics and VAAP, the Russian Copyright Agency, with the cooperation of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Contributors have provided forward-looking papers that deal with the field's most exciting and frustrating problems. In keeping with the spirit of the summer 1989 meeting in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the papers are far-ranging and...

"The dominant figures of postwar astrophysical cosmology have been the late Yakov Ze'ldovich, of Moscow, and Jim Peebles, of Princeton. But running a close third in influence has been Joseph Silk.... This collection is essential reading for the cosmological enthusiast." Nature These essays represent Joseph Silk's own meandering around cosmic themes. The topics span the beginning of time until its end and encompass the enigma of the evolution of large-scale structure, culminating in the formation of the galaxies. Dr. Silk has taken these writings from pieces written over the years, many...

This superb collection by the eminent physicist and critic John Ziman, opens with an album of portraits of scientists--Albert Einstein, Freeman Dyson, Lev Landau, Mark Azbel, Andrei Sakharov. Ziman takes readers into the world of the contemporary scientist, showing how discoveries are made and how claims are tested. He then travels into the minds of scientists as they are drawn into competing directions. Here Ziman exposes the path of discovery, which is strewn with complex human needs, governmental restrictions, the desire for profits, and the exercise of technical virtuosity.

From the very start, at the age of twenty-one, Herbert York was swept into the century's most daring and dangerous technical achievement, the making of the atomic bomb. In Arms and the Physicist, York takes us backstage to witness key events of our time: to the Manhattan Project for the birth of the atomic bomb; to Lawrence Livermore where the H-bomb was built; to Washington to eavesdrop on how post-war history was being forged; and to Geneva where he tried to stem the madness. Readers will meet some of our greatest heros and villains--Lawrence, Oppenheimer, Weisskopf, Teller, General Groves,...

In this technologically adventurous book, Lewis Branscomb-- distinguished physicist who once headed the National Bureau of Standards and later was IBM's Chief Scientist--explores the "wise and creative" uses of our nation's science, from the boundless faith in science after the Second World War, into the age of technology, which, says Branscomb, "is an expression of the values of the society that creates and uses it." Branscomb examines emerging information technologies--computer software, electronic libraries, video disks, and the information "superhighway"--always exploring the way people...

This is a collection of articles, lectures, and essays by a prominent American figure in science and science/technology policy - John Gibbons, who since 1992 has been Science Advisor to the President of the USA. From energy conservation to biotechnology to supercolliders to information technology, the text examines the complexities, conflicts, and compromises inherent in the interactions of science, technology, and government. Throughout these writings, which combine political and social insights with personal reflections, the reader is challenged to envision how we can continue to improve...

There are very few with Philip Morrison's gifts, few who can lead us with firm knowledge whispering just the right encouragement as he guides us across the great ideas of science. Take this journey with one of the most astute navigators and you'll find yourself compelled to go deeper into some of the most daring adventures of modern science. Nothing is too grand or seemingly too trivial - the nature of time, the fabric of the atom, what it means to explore scientific horizons, the galaxies, even the search for unknown intelligence in the vast as-yet-uncharted universe. Then as deftly as...