A Piece of the Sun: The Quest for Fusion Energy

Publishers WeeklyFor the past 60 years, the development of controlled atomic fusion has been the holy grail for physicists and alternative-energy advocates. Clery, a theoretical physicist and European news editor of Science magazine, introduces readers to the problems inherent in this quest and to the international group of scientists who doggedly pursue it. Following WWII and the advent of the atomic bomb (which was based on fission), British, American, and Soviet scientists began investigating the possibility of fusion as a means to build more powerful weapons. Amazingly enough, in 1958—at the height of the Cold War—the U.K. and the U.S. completely declassified their fusion research, thereby enabling physicists from around the world to collaborate.