Terrific at Times but Flawed at Others

If you could sum up Atomic Adventures in three words, what would they be?

Entertaining, Informative, Flawed

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The progression through the book was great.

Have you listened to any of Keith Sellon-Wright’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't knowingly heard him before this book. The performance on this book was excellent however.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Some sections I REALLY enjoyed... this was exactly the kind of book that I search far and wide for but there were some serious flaws within it.

Any additional comments?

This is exactly the kind of book that I search far and wide for. It started out great and I especially enjoyed the section on cold fusion. I remember those days well as I was wrapping up my third year in a four year undergrad degree in chemistry and my phys chem prof was also trying to verify the claims. It was terrific to hear the explanations to the results the author had (which I won't spoil by providing here... ). The narration was excellent and I found it very 'listenable'. Definitely one of the better readings I've heard in 10+ years of being an audible customer.The one area this book fell down in, however, was the explanations of specific impulse for rocket engines. The errors were blatent and took away from an otherwise enjoyable review of NERVA and nuclear rocketry. For the record. Isp has a dimension of seconds because the 'pounds' quantity in the numerator and denominator cancel out. (Isp = lbs of thrust / lbs of propellants per second if i recall correctly). Isp's do not tell you how long the rocket can fire for, rather it tells you how much thrust is produced for a given mass of propellants! Just because an engine has an Isp of 330s, doesn't mean it can only run for 330s but it means that engine will produce 330 pounds of thrust for every pound of the given propellants. This is pretty basic rocketry stuff and it's a shame neither the author nor the editor caught it as it takes away from the rest of the chapter and casts doubts on some of the other sections. Other issues with the rockets? The Russian R7 did not have 25 V2 engines as claimed, but rather 5 engines, each of which had 4 thrust chambers and while some of the technology can be traced back to the V2, they most certainly weren't V2 engines any more than an F1 was. All that aside, I would recommend this book. It is enjoyable and aside from a few technical slip-ups, the author does a great job of reviewing some pretty flakey unscientific claims.

231 people found this helpful

Not my cup of tea.

Any additional comments?

This seemed to me way over the top for extraneous detail. Its one of these promising titles that really have little to say about anything but contained lots personal details. I could not finish it because for every one little tittle of technical info, I had to endure 100 details as mundane as the color of some scientists eyeglass frames. What he liked to eat, how long a plane flight was, where he vacationed, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Nope.. Not my cup of tea. The interesting stuff was soooo far apart, I would forget the topic of the chapter by the time something relevant was stated. One has to wonder where some authors get all this trivial hearsay from people they never knew from so long ago? And... well, lets just say no more.

57 people found this helpful

Excellent Overview Of Numerous Nuclear Adventures

Dr. Mahaffey is a gifted story teller regarding highly technical subjects; although, he frequently dilutes the clarity of his stories with needless details e.g. which soft drink he was sipping. He made a major technical error in stating that the Phoebus-2 reactor, rated at approximately 4 GW thermal, was roughly four times the power of modern commercial reactors. Here, Dr. Mahaffey neglected the distinction between electrical and thermal power. Many commercial reactors in the U.S. produce 1.1 to 1.3 GW electrical, and 3.3 to 3.9 GW thermal, based on a thermodynamic efficiency of 33%.

40 people found this helpful

Details you say...

Great stories and interesting happenings from the nuclear age, told in a folksy way , with an undertone of humor. My only issue would be that the author at times, goes into incredible details... probably beyond the needs of most readers. But overall a very insightful and enjoyable read

17 people found this helpful

Fun and informative

A pleasantly surprising amount of humor for such a technical book. I loved it, lots of detail which may be a bit overwhelming for the uninitiated.

15 people found this helpful

quite interesting, well read and performed.

I found this book to be far more interesting than I thought it would be. the author does a great job of explaining the science without oversimplify them.

12 people found this helpful

Some Great Stories of the Atomic Age

This new book has most of the known stories of atomic adventures and misadventures, including new data I haven't seen elsewhere. Also, some great new stories. Altogether a fascinating read, very well narrated. Fun and interesting.

10 people found this helpful

A very interesting history of Atomic development.

Mahaffey gives insight to the Atomic history that was not covered in other books that I have studied. I you like history and the development of the atom this book is for you.

9 people found this helpful

Another great book by James Mahaffey

i am by no means a physics expert, but this book breaks down the science to where most laymen can understand what's going on. i had been looking forward to this book for months and was not disappointed in the slightest.

7 people found this helpful

Interesting - but there's better NF out there

While I started the book wanting very much to like it, I was repeatedly disappointed by its inability to rise to the level of other nonfiction titles I've listened to recently. I'm not sure if it was due to the lack of forward momentum or diversity of voices or personal disinterest in the topic. Granted, there are some wonderful nuggets within the text - but they are too few and far between for me to highly recomment this text to other listeners.

6 people found this helpful