Reference books

A place to keep track of reference material - any particularly useful books, articles, etc. should be listed here.
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3l
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Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2001 3:51 pm
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Reference books

Post by 3l »

under construction:
I will update from time to time.
Fusion Books.....

Fusion Energy in Space Propulsion
Terry Kammash
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor Michigan
Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics
Paul Zarchan Editor in Chief
Charles Stark Draper Laboratory
Cambridge Massachusetts
Vol 167
ISBN 1-56347-184-1

A fabulous book that compares head to head all known fusion concepts. This book has all the data in which a person can investigate DPF,Tokamak, Pellet fusion, Speromak, ion assisted fusion,
,Antimatter assisted fusion with pictures! ( yes the Air Force has already done the work) ,Muon fusion,Uranium plasma fission devices with a sundry of hybrid fusion / fission devices. Just some of many concepts covered by this book. It is 267 pages in length in which the subject of fusion is exhaustively covered. I took this book at a leasurely pace , it took about two years to get into it fully. It has all the formuli for all the systems. Chapter
six comes after the anti matter stuff and covers QED systems by Bussard and chapter 7 is ALL IEC devices
and their outer space uses.

The Fusion Quest
T Kenneth Fowler
ISBN 0-8018-5456-3

An Interesting book about the major fusion systems of the 90's.....Tokamak, JT60, ITER, NIF .
This book is almost a textbook on thermonuclear fusion.... gives calcs and excuses for not acheiving the
fusion goals promised.

Theory...

The Meaning of Quantum Theory
Jim Baggott

Ever wonder what Bell's convergence was or tunneling of an alpha particle from a radioactive nucleus?
Here's a good intro without too much math in one sitting.
ISBN 0-19-855575-X

Philosophy....

Yes, We Have No Neutrons
A.K. Dewney

How not to do bad science.
As good as it gets.
Any book that stays glued to my shelf by the john gets high marks. Tis is one of them books that causes you to think about it.

ISBN 0-471-29586-8

Nuclear History....

Dark Sun
ISBN
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
ISBN
Richard Rhodes

One Point Safe
Andrew and Leslie Cockburn
ISBN
How the United States dealt with Former Soviet Union
on fissile materials under the Clinton Presidency ...
How we bought TONS of loose U235 metal in order to take it off the black market.

The Curve of Binding Energy
John McPhee
ISBN 0-37451598-0
Before 9/11way back in 1992 Ted Tailor tried to get the government out of it's slumber about nuclear terrorism...*****Warning if you have trouble sleeping this is not the book for you. ****** He conducted a theoretical attack
with a crude home made A-bomb (on paper) against irony of ironies the World Trade Center in NYC. His hypothetical attack was prophetic in the damage and destruction seen when the planes hit the towers. Chilling.
Just keep repeating " We are Safe, We are safe."

The Los Alamos Primer
Robert Serber
ISBN 0520-07576-5

A-Bomb 101 .... First Lectures 1943
Got my first copy in 1964 in paperback for a buck when I was 11.
Got this copy in 1985 still worthy reading...Ronald Reagan wanted to ban this book.

Accelerators
Machines of Nuclear Physics
Robert R Wilson & Rapheal Littauner
1960
Anchor Double Day Science Study Series S-17

About the time I had the Primer ,this book was really good and thorough in a intro developement of Accelerator machines.
Robert Wilson was Lawrences right hand man during the cyclotron and abomb developement. I recently have obtained this book I lost long ago at school on Ebay...as a adult with a load more training this book is not as elementary as I remembered but suprisingly packed with useful stuff.

Nuclear America
Gerard H. Clarefield and William M Weicek
ISBN 0-06015336-9
Covers the United States Nuclear program from 1940
to 1980 . This book is huge but so good...519 pages . Details all the scandle and shanagins of the atomic age... shows where the bodies were buried.

The Nuclear Cage
Lester R. Kurtz
ISBN 0-13625369-5
Yes just like the commander in Apocalypse Now.
The Sociology of the Arms Race.
The mindset of nuclear phobics and paranoid behaivors of those in charge.

Nuclear Flight
The United States Air Force's programs for atomic jets,missiles ,rockets
Kenneth F Gantz
US Air Force
1961

A good ole book covering the nuclear airplane program
(yes reactors were flown in C130 cargo planes),Project Rover the nuclear powered space program, Project Pluto the nuclear ramjet program,the radioisotope and snap reactor systems. In 1964 a SNAP10 Reactor was put in orbit and run at full power of 150kw for almost a month when it failed. It is there today in a 1 million year orbit of the Earth.

We Almost Lost Detroit

Before three mile Island there was the Fermi 1
breader reactor accident .

Electromechanical Energy Conversion
David Brown
E.P.. Hamilton III
CR 1984
Macmillian
ISBN 0-02-315590-6

Everything you ever wanted to know about faraday devices
such as homopolar generator,3 phase, generation in all aspects

It was my undergrad book in electromechanical studies.

To the end of the Solar System:The story of nuclear rockets
James A. Dewar
Synopsis
Chemically propelled rockets can lift less than 5 percent of their take-off weight into orbit, a fact that could forever limit the space program. Nuclear-powered rockets, however, with their superior thrusting power and speed, are radically different. So argues James A. Dewar in the only comprehensive history ever written of the nuclear rocket project. It is a story of political battles over the space program's future, involving Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and a readable account of its technical successes, a story perhaps more interesting and certainly more important, Dewar believes, than the history of atomic and H-bomb development. Dewar maintains that only by reestablishing a nuclear rocket project can the nation have a space program worthy of the 21st century, one that makes reality of the hopes and dreams of science fiction.

About the Author
James A. Dewar worked exclusively on nuclear affairs in the Department of Energy, the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Atomic Energy Commission. He lives in Oxford, Maryland.

Book Description
Chemically propelled rockets can lift less than 5 percent of their take-off weight into orbit, a fact that could forever limit the space program. Nuclear-powered rockets, however, with their superior thrusting power and speed, are radically different. So argues James A. Dewar in the only comprehensive history ever written of the nuclear rocket project. It is a story of political battles over the space program's future, involving Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and a readable account of its technical successes, a story perhaps more interesting and certainly more important, Dewar believes, than the history of atomic and H-bomb development. Dewar maintains that only by reestablishing a nuclear rocket project can the nation have a space program worthy of the 21st century, one that makes reality of the hopes and dreams of science fiction.

Larry Leins
Fusion Tech
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