Collisions: A Physicist’s Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs

In this illuminating account, biographer Nevala-Lee (Inventor of the Future) traces the wide-ranging career of physicist Luis Walter Alvarez, who died in 1988 at age 77. After getting his PhD at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, Alvarez took a job with the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley, where he met J. Robert Oppenheimer. Upon America’s entry into WWII, Oppenheimer invited Alvarez to participate in the Manhattan Project, where he helped devise detonators for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, but the pair’s relationship chilled after Oppenheimer came out against Alvarez’s goal of creating a hydrogen bomb. After the war, Alvarez returned to Berkeley and watched with jealousy as his colleagues collected Nobel Prizes, motivating him to develop a “bubble chamber” machine that recorded the movements of subatomic particles. The invention led to the discovery of numerous new particles and nabbed him the Nobel Prize in 1968. Nevala-Lee provides approachable breakdowns of Alvarez’s pioneering physics and a stimulating overview of his more eclectic latter-day pursuits, including using his background on particle collisions to debunk the theory of a second JFK shooter and to popularize the idea that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid. It’s a solid overview of an accomplished life. Photos. Agent: David Halpern, David Halpern Literary. (June)