B.卡梅隆·里德 Bruce Cameron Reed is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Physics at Alma College, Alma, Michigan. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Waterloo in Canada. In addition to a quantum mechanics text and three other books on the Manhattan Project (including the IOP Concise Physics volume Atomic Bomb: The Story of the Manhattan Project), he has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals on research in the fields of astronomy, data analysis, quantum physics, mathematics, nuclear physics, the history of physics, and the physics of nuclear weapons. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society 'For his contributions to the history of both the physics and the development of nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project'.In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He lives in Michigan with his wife Laurie.

Preface
A note on units
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 The background
1.1 The physics
1.2 The Manhattan Project
References
2 Nuclear fission
2.1 Energy release in fission
2.2 Chain reaction timescale
2.3 Temperature equivalent of fission fragments
2.4 A first glimpse of the efficiency issue
2.5 Neutron pairing energy, the fission barrier, and plutonium
2.6 Decay mechanisms and the (α, n) problem
2.7 Spontaneous fission
References
3 Criticality and efficiency
3.1 Bare criticality
3.2 Supercriticality and the radius-density effect
3.3 Tamped criticality
3.4 Efficiency
References
4 Obtaining fissile material
4.1 U-235: the electromagnetic method
4.2 U-235: the gaseous diffusion method
4.3 Pu-239: the Hanford reactors
References
5 Los Alamos, Little Boy, Fat Man, Trinity, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki
5.1 Predetonation probability
5.2 Little Boy
5.3 Implosion and Fat Man
5.4 Yield probability
5.5 Trinity
5.6 Hiroshima and Nagasaki
References
6 Effects of nuclear weapons
6.1 Brightness and thermal radiation
6.2 Shock wave
6.3 Neutron scattering
6.4 A brief tutorial on radioactivity and radiation exposure units
6.5 Prompt radioactivity from a nuclear weapon
References
7 Legacy
7.1 Postwar proliferation, tests, and deployments
7.2 Nuclear arms treaties and the baggage of the Cold War
7.3 Final thoughts
References
8 Bibliography
Glossary of Symbols
编辑手记