Canaday, John

The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs (Science and Literature)

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What they read while building the bomb
Not Amused

The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs (Science and Literature)
John Canaday
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

"The existence of 'the bomb' as a literary device is, Canaday demonstrates, as significant as its military and political reality. A fascinating and literate glimpse at the words, metaphors, texts, and subtexts that have shaped our nuclear age."-Richard Wolfson, author of Nuclear Choices

John Canaday analyzes a variety of texts produced by physicists before, during, and after the Second World War, including Niels Bohr's "The Quantum Postulate"; the Blegdamsvej Faust, a parody of Goethe's Faust that cast physicists as its principle characters; The Los Alamos Primer, the technical lectures used for training at Los Alamos; scientists' descriptions of their work and of the Trinity test; and Leo Szilard's post-war novella, The Voice of the Dolphins.

"Physicists in the first half of this century became caught up in knowledge, ways of doing science, military projects, and social consequences that pushed their means of representation and understanding to the limit. This important study reveals how the Los Alamos physicists adopted literary modes of expression to come to terms with the worlds they were making and transforming."-Charles Bazerman, author of Shaping Written Knowledge

"A revelatory exploration of the relation between literary and scientific languages, which John Canaday analyzes with an exceptional sophistication that combines analytical rigor and a wonderful aesthetic and moral sensibility."-Myra Jehlen, Rutgers University

"A stunning examination of how nuclear physicists of the early twentieth century used literary conventions to translate their discoveries about nature into human language, and used that same language to deal with the human and moral consequences of their development of the bomb."-Nicholas Clifford, Middlebury College

"Canaday's insightful study has added a fourth dimension to our understanding of how we 'learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.'"-Martin J. Sherwin, author of A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies

John Canaday is a prize-winning poet and playwright who has been a Watson Fellow and the Starbuck Fellow in Poetry at Boston University. He tutors students in literature, writing, history, mathematics, and physics.

Customer Reviews:

highly recommended.......2001-11-09

This book makes a real effort to bridge the gap between the scientific and literary worlds. The author writes clearly about complex issues and avoids the over-simplification of choosing sides in the conflict between humanists and scientists. I came away from this book having a deeper understanding of the history of physics and how important literature is in shaping and describing the way we see the world around us.

The author is particularly good at describing the moral dilemma faced by scientists who worked in the Manhattan Project. He explains these issues with sensitivity and understanding, but he doesn't whitewash things either. These scientists were often pacifists, often left-leaning, yet they worked on weapons of mass destruction. Canaday helps explain how this could be possible, and how we continue to be able to live with the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads.

I was impressed with how well Canaday writes. This is a scholarly book, but he made the topic accessible to generally educated readers, like me. He avoided the jargon I hate in some scholarly books. Instead the book was understandable and interesting throughout, and even in places where I didn't agree with his conclusions, I still felt thankful for how hard he made me think about things.

I recommend this book for anyone interested either in the relationship between physics and literature or the development of nuclear weapons (or both!).

What they read while building the bomb.......2001-10-31

In April 1932, 35 of the world's top physicists, among them Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli and P.A.M. Dirac, met at Niels Bohr's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen for their annual conference on quantum mechanics. In just a few years, the world's powers would begin the war that would end with a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima. It seems eerily prescient that some of the younger conferees took several days away from discussing protons and neutrons to rewrite Goethe's "Faust," with their best-known colleagues appearing as the play's main characters.

So we learn in "The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs," a brilliant study of the interplay between literature and physics. John Canaday writes that the young physicists had turned to the story about a man who attained supernatural powers by selling his soul to the devil to acquire "the metaphorical tools with which both to explore and to contain the disruptions involved in this dramatic leap in their search for a deep knowledge of nature."

The participants in the 1932 conference turned to this one play to explain their early work. The scientists who developed the first working atomic bomb at Los Alamos in 1943 would need a virtual library to accomplish a similar purpose. In memoirs, letters, speeches and conversations with one another, they referred to Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" and Shakespeare's "The Tempest," the Old Testament and the teachings of the Buddha, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lost World," the writings of Thucydides as well as those of Lewis Carroll.

Perhaps the best-known use of metaphor to describe atomic power is Robert Oppenheimer's borrowing from the 2,000-year-old Bhagavad Gita just seconds after the first nuclear explosion in the New Mexico desert. Quoting the many-armed Vishnu, Oppenheimer said, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

In examining the many reactions to Oppenheimer's statement, Canaday notes that no commentator has ever regretted that the scientist didn't describe the blast literally, or that he preferred an ancient metaphor to "his own" words. The image of a god of destruction who leaps full-blown from nowhere to fill our familiar sky said more about the terror about to be unleashed on the world than any account relying on mere physical description could.

Canaday also explains how Oppenheimer, the scientist responsible for overseeing construction of the first atomic bomb, had in mind the John Donne sonnet that begins "Batter my heart, three-personed God" when he called the first atomic bomb trial the Trinity test.

Just as Freud turned to Greek tragedy to name the Oedipus complex, so the Los Alamos scientists peered into dusty volumes in order to understand the blinding terrors of the atomic age. In both cases, the investigators suspected that someone had encapsulated their half-formulated discoveries centuries earlier not with scientific formulas but with metaphors. As different as psychoanalysis and physics are, the principle is the same: In order to understand the future, you must first know the past.

In a graceful metaphor, Canaday points out that while literature makes it possible to think about science, science on the magnitude of nuclear fission returns the favor. By creating weapons so powerful that no sane nation would use them, scientists have ensured that atomic bombs will almost always be "fictions," that is, symbols of a terrible reality rather than reality itself.

Unfortunately, the metaphor holds only as long as superpowers such as the United States and Russia, or some rogue nation, never check out a volume from their nuclear libraries, setting off a catastrophe of unchartable dimensions. If that happens, it'll be time to reach for the old books again, assuming there'll be books left to reach for and someone to do the reaching.

Not Amused.......2001-08-30

From the title The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics and the First Atomic Bomb, one might expect a scholarly work with meaningful insight. Unfortunately, what one finds is closer to intellectual sleight of hand, buzzwords, and assertions which are, if not wrong, trivial. An exhaustive catalog of the deficiencies of this volume would be excessive. This review will concentrate on some illustrative examples.
A recurrent flaw in this book is the author's almost disingenuous failure to recognize the concept of models in science. On page 34, Canaday cites Frisch's Working with Atoms (1965) "Almost two hundred years ago the chemists found they could explain a lot by assuming that all things are made from a few dozen kinds of tiny bits called atoms...." On page 35, Canaday (mis-) characterizes this as "chemists `found' that matter was constructed of atoms." Atomic theory proposed for scientific purposes (as opposed to a philosophical ploy for the advancement of atheism-see The Atom in the History of Human Thought, Bernard Pullman) began with Dalton. It did not become accepted until the early 20th Century. Bronowski relates [The Ascent of Man] that Boltzmann committed suicide in 1906 because he felt that atomic theory would not be accepted. The arguments for atomic theory were based on its utility in explaining experimental facts. Frisch's careful statement reflects this history; Canaday's misses or dismisses it entirely. I would have more confidence in Canaday's exegesis if he showed first that he could grasp the literal meanings correctly.
Another failure to recognize the use of models occurs in Canaday's discussion of the Los Alamos Primer, which he defines as a work of fiction and, therefore, literary, because it contained simplifications and described a thing that did not (yet) exist. A definition should make useful discriminations. Canaday's definition of fiction does not. By his definition, the blue prints for next year's model of Cadillac is as much a work of fiction as Frankenstein. President Lincoln pointed out the problem with such definitions: if you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one. Where models, such as those used in the Los Alamos Primer, simplify, or idealize, they introduce (one hopes) not significant error and as Bacon pointed out "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion." Chemists even have an old joke on the subject. A ruler, wishing to improve his country's dairy industry hires a physical chemist for what turns into a long and expensive study. Upon opening the first of several volumes of results, the ruler reads the first sentence, "Assume a spherical cow." Clearly, scientists are not unaware of their use of models and do not apply a model without considering limitations arising from the simplifications used in generating them. If one removed the word "fiction" and substituted "model" in much of this discussion, Canaday's writing would make more sense.
While on the subject of the Los Alamos Primer and points missed, the chapter contains a five-page section under the heading "What's in a Name?" in which he discusses "all" the ramifications of the word "primer" with a "short i." Although he discusses the humor in this word choice, he never considers the meaning of "primer" with a "long i:" a device used to detonate the main explosive charge of a weapon. Considering the purpose of the Manhattan project, for which the primer was written, this seems to be either a significant oversight or an hypothesis to be dismissed with an explanation to the reader.
Yet a third disappointing treatment of models is seen in Canaday's treatment (throughout the book) of the problem of the "wave" and "particle" models for the properties of light. Particularly vexing is his failure to reveal to the reader the resolution of this "problem" by de Broglie in the 1920's. His reasons for this omission are, at best, mysterious.
Other examples of "literary" contributions included Arthur Compton's cryptic disclosure to James Conant of Fermi's successful chain reaction and Oppenheimer's reaction to the successful Trinity test. The first was "The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world." The problem here is that this example, despite the five-page discussion of it as a literary reference, is historical, not literary. Oppenheimer's quote was from the Bhagavad Gita. (There are Scriptural references from others cited as well.) Again, this begs the question because the citations are from religious works. One suspects that the strictly observant of the faiths associated with these works would take a dim view of treating their holy writ as wholly lit.
There is another problem with the Oppenheimer quote (p.185). Canaday spends a long paragraph (p. 186) agonizing over the accuracy of the quote-taken from a book, taken from another book, transcribed from a documentary quoting an interview is accurate, especially in light of an alternate version. Oh, which is right and where did the alternate arise? Oh, agony. The documentary in question is available on video tape and Oppenheimer is quoted correctly in Canaday's sources. Why he did not make the effort to find it himself is between him and his notion of scholarship. As to the origin of the variant, Canaday, apparently without realizing it, includes its most likely origin, some thirty-five pages later, in Laurence's account of his talk with Oppenheimer the day following the test.
Finally, one must ask the question of whether the scientific-literary connection is real or merely a fluke. It is hard to argue that Canaday makes much of a case. While making much of H. G. Wells' contribution to nuclear research in The World Set Free because it deals with generating atomic energy, would there not be more examples of such a connection in other fields were it real? Would anyone seriously argue that the poison gas in The War of the Worlds-"...it is possible that [an unknown element] combines with Argon to form a compound...."-contributed to the discover of noble gas compounds? What about the influence of The First Men in the Moon or From the Earth to the Moon on the Apollo Missions? (The closest one is apt to get is von Braun's adopting the practice of counting backwards at rocket launches after seeing it in Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Moon.") Perhaps a better characterization of the examples in this book would be that scientists, being people, when communicating rely largely on language (with all its shortcomings) and that it is human nature to deal with novel situations in terms of familiar situations. (The extreme example of the latter is the quote: when your only tool is a hammer, all problems tend to look like nails.)
I feel bad about criticizing this book so harshly. Let me make up for it by outlining a topic for Canaday's next book on interactions between science and literature. Mary Shelley's father, who educated her, was an enlightenment philosopher and, thus, had an antipathy toward the Church. The greatest blow recently dealt to the power of the Church (in regard to its infallibility) was the Copernican overthrow of the Ptolemaic geocentric universe. Thus, he was apt to read Copernicus and to have had Mary read it as well. The preface of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (as translated by Jerzy Dobrzyski) contains the suggestive sentence "... taking from various places hands, feet, a head and other pieces ... since these fragments would not belong one to another at all, a monster rather than a man would be put together from them." Clearly, such a sentence could remain in Mary Shelley's subconscious mind and later manifest itself in the dream which lead to Frankenstein.

Metropolitan Seminars In Art (What is painting?, 1)

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Metropolitan Seminars In Art (What is painting?, 1)

Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
ASIN: B0007I9X5S

THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS 4 Vols 1. Late Gothic To High Renaissance.2. Baroque.3.Neoclasisic-Post-Impressionist 4. Plates and Index

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THE LIVES OF THE PAINTERS 4 Vols 1. Late Gothic To High Renaissance.2. Baroque.3.Neoclasisic-Post-Impressionist 4. Plates and Index
John Canaday
Manufacturer: W.W. NORTON & CO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HH223O

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The Congo Venus (Perennial Library)
Matthew Head , and John Canaday
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0060805978

What Is Art?: An Introduction To Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture

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Canaday's Book is One of the Best in the Field

What Is Art?: An Introduction To Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture
John Edwin Canaday
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Painting | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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Qualifying Textbooks - Spring 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 007554329X

Customer Reviews:

Canaday's Book is One of the Best in the Field.......2005-08-20

This was the text that a gifted professor on mine used for his Art Theory classes as a pre-requisite to Art History in the early 1980's. If you want an overload to understanding the essence of fine art, this is the book. Read it again and again; even decades later it yields more. I rate it as a classic in its field. A must-have if you want to study art in any genre, particularly in painting.

What Is Art an Introduction to Painting Sculptu

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What Is Art? An Introduction to Painting, Sculpture and Arch

What Is Art an Introduction to Painting Sculptu
John Canaday
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0870992252

Customer Reviews:

What Is Art? An Introduction to Painting, Sculpture and Arch.......2002-12-11

This is a great book for anyone interested in seeing art as a critic sees it. It is easy to read, with detailed information on each work reviewed and compared. All photographs are numbered and referenced with the page number where it is found. It is thorough, educational and enjoyable.

Seminars in Art Metropolitan Museum of Art (Portfolio 2 Realism)

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Seminars in Art Metropolitan Museum of Art (Portfolio 2 Realism)
John Canaday
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000E2ZOQO

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Gold Dust
John Canaday
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Baroque Painters (The Lives of Painters II)

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Baroque Painters (The Lives of Painters II)
John Canaday
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0393006654

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Richard Estes
John Edwin Canaday , John Arthur , and Richard Estes
Manufacturer: Bulfinch Press,U.S.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Realism | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Richard Estes

ASIN: 0878461264

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