-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy
by Frank Close
Bruno Pontecorvo dedicated his career to hunting for the Higgs boson of his day: the neutrino, a nearly massless particle considered essential to the process of nuclear fission. His work on the Manhattan project under Enrico Fermi confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist and helped usher in the nuclear age. He should have won a Nobel Prize, but late in the summer of 1950 he vanished. At the height of the Cold War, Pontecorvo had disappeared behind the Iron Curtain.
In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo's life, based on unprecedented access to his friends, family, and colleagues. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller - classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a kidnapping by Soviet operatives - Half-Life is a history of particle physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.
"Starred Review. Close serves Pontecorvo well in this outstanding biography, illuminating his work as well as the painful political conflicts of his time. " - Publishers Weekly
"A fine account, heavy on science and politics, of a long, productive, peripatetic and ultimately inexplicable life." - Kirkus
"This fascinating and well-researched account will appeal to a wide range of readers, including those interested in World War II and the foundation of the Manhattan Project, the Cold War, particle physics, the process of scientific investigation, and the life of scientists." - Library Journal
"Weaving together a fascinating personal life and the politics of the Cold War with his usual insightful exposition of physics, Close has produced a triumph of scientific biography. For once, truth really is stranger than fiction." - John Gribbin, author of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat
" Impeccably researched, Half-Life masterfully illuminates its shadowy target, offering a lucid assessment of Bruno Pontecorvo's vital scientific contributions." - Paul Halpern, author of Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat
"Frank Close sheds fascinating new light on a complicated man and the legacy he left behind." - David Kaiser, author of How the Hippies Saved Physics
This information about Half-Life was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Frank Close is professor of physics at the University of Oxford. A longtime science writer, Close is a past recipient of the Kelvin Medal from the Institute of Physics for his contributions to the public understanding of physics. He is the author of many books, including Neutrino, Nothing, The Void, and The Cosmic Onion, and has written or presented for Nature, the BBC, and other media outlets.
If you liked Half-Life, try these:
by Natasha Pulley
Published 2024
From the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and The Kingdoms, an epic Cold War novel set in a mysterious town in Soviet Russia.
by Nell Greenfieldboyce
Published 2024
An astonishing debut from the beloved NPR science correspondent: intimate essays about the intersection of science and everyday life.
by Steve Sheinkin
Published 2023
From three-time National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honor author Steve Sheinkin, a true story of two Jewish teenagers racing against time during the Holocaust - one in hiding in Hungary, and the other in Auschwitz, plotting escape.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
