Tuxedo Park - the untold story of science behind world wars

I never imagined the impact one man could have had on the path and destiny of the World War II that we have been a witness to. This man turns out to be Mr. Alfred Lee Loomis - did you ever hear of him? I'm sure not....I also did not...before my almost impulsive interest in the literature associated with World War 2 made me pick up this book.

Tuxedo Park tells the story of an American high society called Tuxedo Park and one Alfred Loomis, who turned his big mansion at Tuxedo Park into an almost mystical and highly secretive lab.This lab became the birthplace of the ideas and inventions that almost single handedly turned the tide of the World War 2 in the favor of the Allied forces and gave rise to many modern day technologies we find commonplace today.

If you want to investigate the reasons and origins of how this whole arms race started, this is the book to read. It is also a second hand account into the journey of a few committed scientists that led to the invention of atomic bombs that laid to waste, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first hand account being the biography of Dr. Oppenheimer, who headed that team.

The book takes you through the life of Alfred Loomis, a kind hearted millionaire, a shrewd wall street hero and a passionate scientist. This name is probably not even mentioned once or gets only a passing mention in the zillions of historical accounts of World Wars. However, Tuxedo Park is arguable the first account of this mysterious and enigmatic personality who played a most pivotal role in all the scientific progress that humankind made in defense related science during those few turbulent and devastating times. From spending without batting an eyelid on establishing a private state of the art laboratory to lobbying fervently for budgets for these researches to heading a number of committees that for the first time took the application of scientific concepts and applied it to defense. To mys surprise, almost every Nobel laureate and leading scientist have been associated with this man. Yet, I am truly amazed at the contribution this man has made to further science and even more intrigued by an almost conspicuous yet mysterious absence of this guy from any popular account - either of science, war or history. This book to a large extent unravels this mystery.

It will definitely appeal to all those who are intrigued by this heady and potentially dangerous collaboration between science and defense and how it has led to the evolution of the so called world <nuclear> powers as we know them today.