Continuing the Nuclear Dialogue

Alvin Weinberg has been a key contributor to nuclear power for more than 40 years and has also been a prolific writer on the interaction between modern technology and society. A member of the team that developed the first chain reactor at the University of Chicago in 1942, and later director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, Weinberg has seen first-hand the evolution of nuclear science and technology and has recorded what he has witnessed along the way. Included in this collection are 21 essays and reviews that span the past four decades of the nuclear era. In his early essays, Weinberg forecast the industrial uses of nuclear energy and outlined the requirements for economic nuclear power generation. In later works, the author considered the problems, perceived risks, and moral imperatives of nuclear technology and put such events as the accident at Three Mile Island-2 in perspective. These essays will be stimulating reading for anyone interested in the complex role of nuclear energy in today's world.