Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking by Charles Seife (PDF)

Description

With his knack for translating science into understandable, anecdotal prose and his trademark dry humor, award-winning science writer Charles Seife presents the first narrative account of the history of fusion for general readers in more than a decade. Tracing the story from its beginning into the twenty-first century, Sun in a Bottle reveals fusion’s explosive role in some of the biggest scientific scandals of all time. Throughout this journey, he introduces us to the daring geniuses, villains, and victims of fusion science. With the giant international fusion project ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) now under construction, it’s clear that the science of wishful thinking is as strong as ever. This book is our key to understanding why.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I purchased this book to satisfy a long lingering curiosity about the subject of fusion. I’m nearly 40 years old with a somewhat faded recollection of my high school / college scientific lessons. I’m crusading to dust of existing knowledge, and planning to actually learn what I wish I’d paid more attention to during adolescence. I also need to catch up on the current state of human knowledge.Combined with a few books about relativity, string theory and human evolution, this book has been worth the price of admission for me (biased as it may be).I’ve spent some time reading reviewers’ opinions, and I must say that I agree with many of them. You can spot the professional scientists a mile away (grumpy…lol). As well they should be, as hard as this field must be (let alone devoting your entire life to it).The author’s grammar, prose, vocabulary and articulation are razor sharp…it is impossible not to reap some level of knowledge.I highly suggest reading this book, and as for its pessimistic tone, have a grain of salt handy. Self interest and glory chasing are, after all, the human conditions necessary to fuel any passionate endeavor. We all seek recognition and attention on at least some level. It is unfortunate that some of these “air guitarists” have lacked scientific integrity, exchanging morals for a quick buck or 15 minutes of fame. More like a lifetime of shame…but this should NOT detract from the hard-working, honest scientists in the field…not should it be the a basis for disregard or abandonment. We need an alternative energy source, and the R&D will continue to cost a lot of money for a long period of time. A necessary expenditure!At least now I’m armed with enough general knowledge to grasp the implications and possibilities of a fusion powered world, and I hope the data gleaned from monster atom smashers like CERN will unearth a few discoveries to further this form of energy.Now I’m off to search for something on quantum qechanics…and a little something more to wrap my brain around this “Higgs-boson.” It’s hard enough to envision a 4th dimension, let alone a universal system permeating / governing all things including space. I wonder what sorts of truths the July 4th Higgs Field discovery may reveal…fascinating stuff!

⭐I expected a technical history and description of fusion power. I did get that but also much more. This book is also about the process of scientific discovery and the drives and motivations of the scientists. It’s about human hope and despair and is written in an engaging, lucid and entertaining style that makes it understandable to the “ non- nuclear” physicist. I gave it four stars only because of its age. I now need to get up to date on the current state of the art.

⭐It’s unabridged, MP3, so, can’t play it in my car, will have to play it on the computer here and/or at work.I’d read the book when it came out, and look forward to having it read to me now. But it won’t be right away.Three stars because I’ve not tried listening yet. The case looks immaculate.

⭐I read “Sun in a Bottle” because I have previously worked on tokamak technology in graduate school, and because I read a previous book by this author (Decoding the Universe), which I found to be very good. I was not disappointed because I found, like many others including at least some critics in this review list, that it was difficult to put down. “Sun in a Bottle” is basically a history book, and many of the stories are quite interesting. Probably few readers will have heard all of the details of many of the stories. Like any history book, the author’s biases color the stories, but how else could it be? The author does unfairly leave the reader with the impression that there is little hope for fusion power in the foreseeable future. The mainstream magnetic confinement fusion effort has demonstrated that particle and energy confinement times increase with the device size. All indications are that a useful power-producing device will have to be big. Big things are expensive. The author cringes at the price tag of $5-10 billion dollars for ITER, ignoring the fact that the US alone is spending hundreds of billions of dollars over periods of a few years to control the oil production and the profits thereof in Iraq. The point of fusion is to replace oil, so the price tag is hardly outlandish. The indication that power producing fusion devices will have to be big is actually a good thing. Fusion reactions involving deuterium produce a lot more neutrons per joule of energy released than fission reactions. If power production from tabletop fusion were actually possible, it would be relatively easy to convert plentiful uranium 238 into plutonium, and thereafter manufacture an atomic bomb.

⭐Good, but the last I heard we were still using the Gregorian Calendar so why must the author use BCE and CE?

⭐A very human-interest view on fusion history. Seife maintains some inter-character antagonisms that might be slightly skewed toward drama, but it mostly is effective in keeping reader interest for a very specialized and hopeful science. Not for the physicist or stickler, but a very entertaining book about a topic that most people have very little knowledge of.I learned the differences between an H-bomb and a fission bomb, the different types of fusion reactors, and that the big problem isn’t fusion, it’s sustaining fusion AND getting more energy out of the reaction than was initially put in to start it. I was really surprised that table-top fusion was a real thing–but now I understand the term “cold-fusion” much better.This being said, the only fusion references I really had previously were from “The Saint” (1997) with Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue, and I also had a colleague working for ITER. Fusion just is not important enough (yet) to be in undergraduate physics, chemistry or thermodynamics courses…

⭐When tantalising possibilities are mixed with great (one could say, desperate) desires, the stage is set for plenty of heat and light. Charles Seife does an excellent job of explaining fusion in terms non-physicists can easily understand, while wryly describing why the quest for ‘limitless free energy’ has so far produced endless smoke and mirrors while steadfastly failing to get nearer than 30 years away from delivering a commercially-viable process.

⭐I knew next to nothing about fusion research before reading this book. I was vaguely aware of slow progress, with the goal of achieving sustainable fusion not seeming to come any closer. This book provides an excellent history of fusion research. It does an excellent job in explaining the various designs that have been tested so far or for which testing is ongoing and the problems encountered. It’s not an optimistic picture. The book also delivers a candid view on the scientific process and the politics in relation to fusion research.

⭐Kind of destroys my childhood dreams of working for the fusion research industry.Still, it’s fairly fundamental to know these things if you are interested in the general topic.

⭐This is an amazing book and even for someone who has very little understanding of the subject it is easy to understand

⭐This book is very well written. It is about Nuclear Fusion, and whether that can ever be viable source of power here on Earth. The book goes into the early work in Nuclear Power, and also gives a good background on how Nuclear Fusion relates to Nuclear Fission. The book is well written and is a good source of information for those who want to learn more about this topic.

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