Fusion history books

A place to keep track of reference material - any particularly useful books, articles, etc. should be listed here.
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Richard Hull
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Fusion history books

Post by Richard Hull »

Four in this lot and all good.

The father of the fusion dream was Lyman Spitzer

Physics of Fully ionized Gases, Spitzer, 1956. Yes it is scientific, but one of the first books to deal with the fusion basics (plasma physics). This little, hard to get, 100 page paper back is more for collecting and reading for it scientific and deeper historical value than as a full history of fusion. One of the early works relating to the fusion effort.

"Project Sherwood", Bishop, 1958. THE first fusion history. A must read. Can be tough to obtain, but it is out there. Notable for Bishop's dismissal of electrostatic confined fusion reactions. A coming out for the secret fusion plasma research done under the Sherwood moniker.

"Fusion - The Search for Endless Energy", Robin Herman, 1990. A pretty good history of the effort, but slanted slightly towards her old alma mater, Princeton. Written by a journalist, it is a good smooth and entertaining read.

"Fusion", Bromberg, 1982. A really good book and the official version being written under DOE contract by Bromberg. Lots of Hirsch references in this one. If you only get one history, get this one. Well referenced.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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