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Atomic Accidents

A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

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Atomic Accidents

By: James Mahaffey
Narrated by: Tom Weiner
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About this listen

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

Mahaffey, a long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy, looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns.

Every incident has lead to new facets in understanding about the mighty atom—and Mahaffey puts forth what the future should be for this final frontier of science that still holds so much promise.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2014 James Mahaffey (P)2014 Blackstone Audio History History & Philosophy Science Thought-Provoking Inspiring Nuclear Engineering

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All stars
Most relevant
You need to have a bit of a geeky mind to enjoy this sort of book, but it is very well written, easy to follow and has the right level of technical / scientific detail to make it both factual and very enjoyable to follow. The navigation across the subjects time line is impeccable and the different elements to the history of splitting the atom are broken down into logical subject matters.

Very enjoyable, detailed, informative and accurate.

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This book describes nuclear accidents in a factual and monotonous Wikipedia-like manner. However the most serious accident in Chernobyl is presented at about 2:20 hours before end of this 16 hours audiobook! This is not proportional to the seriousness of Chernobyl and Fukushima (1:45 before end) accidents.

At the time of writing this review Audible iOS chapters are just numbered and do not correspond with real chapters. Therefore finding specific accidents is impossible.

Despite the above I found this audiobook brook interesting.

Factual and Monotonous but interesting

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I was hooked from the opening until the final spoken word. I was tempted to skip forward; only because the chapters were described and I wanted to cherry-pick my way through this audio book. In the end, I listened all the way through and am glad I did. We live a mere 10 mules from a nuclear-reactor at Hinckley Point and while it differs in design from some of the earlier reactors mentioned, the operating principle is the same....chilling !

Enthralling and frightening at the same time!

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Irrational fear appears to drive much of thinking and politics that surround the viability of Nuclear Power.
This book goes a long way toward educating and increasing clarity around the issue.

Educate yourself about Nuclear Power

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Written by someone with an inside knowledge of the nuclear industry, the accounts of the horrific accidents of the military misadventures of the Cold War are chillingly flamboyant.
In contrast the lonely deaths of the early researchers have a sad tragic comedy about them as we learnt to live and work with radiation.
Our love affair with the Pressurized Water Reactor, courtesy of a pragmatic and disciplined US Admiral show the danger of upsizing and the innate conservatism of large corporations.
The violence that is so well told in the 19th century spectacle of crashing steam trains head on into one another is retold in the disaster of Chernobyl. But take a Futurelearn course on nuclear power to get the most from this book before you read it.

From Train wrecks to Small Modular Reactors

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