List of Illustrations

Glossary of Characters

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. War, Revolution, Peace and Maths

3. In the Company of Gods

4. Twilight of a Golden Age

5. America the Beautiful

6. The Hungarian Conspiracy Skirmishes

7. Maverick on the Mesa

8. The Little Toe of the Ghost

9. The Legacy of Hiroshima

10. Wilderness Years

11. The Taking of Washington

12. Unholy Alliances

13. A 'Simple, Great and Stupid' Mistake

14. Technically So Sweet

15. Mike

16. 'Soled' to the Californians

17. Bravo

18. The Hearing

19. Aftermath

20. 'Almost like Ivory Soap'

21. A Matter of Detection

22. Plowshare

23. Confounding Camelot

24. Struggling Uphill

25. Bringing up the Props

26. Excalibur

27. Reykjavik

28. Brilliant Pebbles

Epilogue

Appendix 1: The New Physics: the Path that Led to Quantum Mechanics

Appendix 2: Basic Information on the History of Fission

Appendix 3: The Sketch for the 'Super' that Evolved During the Berkeley Conference, Summer 1942

Notes and References

Select Bibliography

Index

Peter Goodchild is an award-winning television producer and the former head of both Science and Features and Drama at the BBC. His production of Oppenheimer won a British Academy Award and spawned an acclaimed biography.