Silencing the Bomb

One Scientist's Quest to Halt Nuclear Testing

Lynn R. Sykes

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Hardback

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English

Columbia University Press
12 December 2017

Military history; International relations; Nuclear weapons; Volcanology & seismology; History of engineering & technology

"In December 2016, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their iconic ""Doomsday Clock"" thirty seconds forward to two and a half minutes to midnight, the latest it has been set since 1952, the year of the first United States hydrogen bomb test. But a group of scientists-geologists, engineers, and physicists-has been fighting to turn back the clock. Since the dawn of the Cold War, they have advocated a halt to nuclear testing, their work culminating in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which still awaits ratification from China, Iran, North Korea-and the United States. The backbone of the treaty is every nation's ability to independently monitor the nuclear activity of the others. The noted seismologist Lynn R. Sykes, one of the central figures in the development of the science and technology used in monitoring, has dedicated his career to halting nuclear testing. In Silencing the Bomb, he tells the inside story behind scientists' quest for disarmament.

Called upon time and again to testify before Congress and to inform the public, Sykes and his colleagues were, for much of the Cold War, among the only people on earth able to say with certainty when and where a bomb was tested and how large it was. Methods of measuring earthquakes, researchers realized, could also detect underground nuclear explosions. When politicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain attempted to sidestep disarmament or test ban treaties, Sykes was able to deploy the nascent science of plate tectonics to reveal the truth. Seismologists' discoveries helped bring about treaties limiting nuclear testing, but it was their activism that played a key role in the effort for peace. Full of intrigue, international politics, and hard science used for the global good, Silencing the Bomb is a timely and necessary chronicle of one scientist's efforts to keep the clock from striking midnight."

By: Lynn R. Sykes
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231182485
ISBN 10: 0231182481
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 12 December 2017
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Lynn R. Sykes is Higgins Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Reviews for Silencing the Bomb: One Scientist's Quest to Halt Nuclear Testing

Lynn R. Sykes has a long record of using seismology to study the important question of how to differentiate nuclear explosions from earthquakes. That experience makes him uniquely qualified to present this cautionary tale about the sclerotic process by which well-founded scientific insight filters its way into the politically loaded formulation of national policy-particularly defense policy. -- Daniel Davis, Stony Brook University