Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking

Just before the holidays started, I found this book “Sun in a Bottle” by Charles Seife on Google ebooks. After reading the first free chapter I was immediately hooked on and decided to purchase the book and finish reading it before the holidays got over. I think this is a great book that talks about fission, fusion and the fiction of fusion. One of the rare books I have seen that combines the science of fusion with politics of fusion and economics of fusion. This book goes into great lengths of how fission and fusion works without making it a science paper. It also does a great job of explaining why we can have sun on the earth but not sun in a bottle. The historical and scientific perspective that it puts on fusion, the different efforts domestic and international to create sustainable manageable fusion in controlled manner made the book interesting read without getting overwhelmed. It has just the right mix of the science and politics and economics. The rather non-nerdy description of the magnetic plasma containers, the laser machines, cold-fusion and table top fusion devices, the excitement, the failures, the frustration, the deceit just makes this book a great read. There is enough technology and drama in this book. I also learned quite a few things including the fact fusion is not completely clean energy, the intellectual debate and rivalry between Lord Kelvin and Charles Darwin among other things. The only thing I was not too happy about was the very harsh treatment of Dr. Talyerkhan and ITER and the proclamation that ITER will never achieve breakeven. Other than that I think this is a great book for energy aficionados like me who are not smart enough to be a rocket scientist. If you ever enjoyed your physics or chemistry classes in high school you will enjoy this book. Read it, you will like it. The book is recent enough to cover almost the entire history and I hope he will write another book about CERN and LHC in next couple of years.

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