Choice Review

Turchetti (Univ. of Manchester, UK) has expanded, revised, and translated his 2007 Italian work on Bruno Pontecorvo (1913-93). Pontecorvo made many contributions to nuclear physics and engineering, and to seismology--significantly in the area of well logging. The author seeks to understand the reasons that drove this distinguished physicist to defect to the USSR in 1950. He was a member of a prominent Jewish Italian family and an important member of Fermi's legendary research group in the 1930s. He fled with his family through a series of countries just ahead of Nazi invasions, and eventually ended up in the US. Then, after working in Canada and the UK, Pontecorvo defected, but his 40 years of contributions to various Soviet programs are still not clear. The book is dense in details about secrecy, FBI investigations, Cold War politics, patents, spying, and personal intrigues. Turchetti believes that a colleague's patent suit against the US induced the physicist to defect. The style is somewhat awkward, the language a bit stilted, and the conclusions are somewhat questionable. This book will be useful to those seriously interested in the history of physics. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above. A. M. Strauss Vanderbilt University