Leo Szilard Research Articles

When Leo Szilard changed his mind

Born 125 years ago, the Hungarian–American physicist Leo Szilard is best remembered for being the first scientist to call for atomic bombs to be developed – before later demanding they be stopped. But as Istvan Hargittai explains, this was not the only occasion when his views evolved in unexpected directions.

Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

Empirical Modelling of Einstein Absorption Refrigeration System

A single pressure absorption refrigeration system was invented by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard nearly ninety-year-old. The system is attractive as it has no mechanical moving parts and can be driven by heat alone. However, the related literature and work done on this refrigeration system is scarce. Previous researchers analysed the refrigeration system theoretically, both the system pressure and component temperatures were fixed merely by assumption of ideal condition. These values somehow have never been verified by experimental result. In this paper, empirical models were proposed and developed to estimate the system pressure, the generator temperature and the partial pressure of butane in the evaporator. These values are important to predict the system operation and the evaporator temperature. The empirical models were verified by experimental results of five experimental settings where the power input to generator and bubble pump were varied. The error for the estimation of the system pressure, generator temperature and partial pressure of butane in evaporator are ranged 0.89-6.76%, 0.23-2.68% and 0.28-2.30%, respectively. In addition, all the estimated generator temperatures and partial pressures of butane are within the error bar range that derived from the standard deviation of the experimental results.

Leo Szilard's Bladder Cancer: Survival in the Nuclear Era

Leo Szilard's Bladder Cancer: Survival in the Nuclear Era

Continuous culture techniques as simulators for standard cells: Jacques Monod's, Aron Novick's and Leo Szilard's quantitative approach to microbiology.

Continuous culture techniques were developed in the early twentieth century to replace cumbersome studies of cell growth in batch cultures. In contrast to batch cultures, they constituted an open concept, as cells are forced to proliferate by adding new medium while cell suspension is constantly removed. During the 1940s and 1950s new devices have been designed-called "automatic syringe mechanism," "turbidostat," "chemostat," "bactogen," and "microbial auxanometer"-which allowed increasingly accurate quantitative measurements of bacterial growth. With these devices cell growth came under the external control of the experimenters and thus accessible for developing a mathematical theory of growth kinetics-developed mainly by Jacques Monod, Aron Novick and Leo Szilard in the early 1950s and still in use today. The paper explores the development of continuous culture devices and claims that these devices are simulators for standard cells following specific requirements, in particular involving mathematical constraints in the design and setting of the devices as well as experiments. These requirements have led to contemporary designs of continuous culture techniques realizing a specific event-based flow algorithm able to simulate directed evolution and produce artificial cells and microorganisms. This current development is seen as an alternative approach to today's synthetic biology.

Epigenetics of cancer and aging: From mechanisms to therapies

In the 1960s, Leslie Orgel proposed what is now known as the error catastrophe theory of aging, arguing that errors in protein translation that reduce the fidelity of the protein-translating enzymes would lead to a feedback loop of increasingly inaccurate protein synthesis, terminating in the death of the organism. This mechanism of aging would be consistent with the exponential increase of mortality observed in humans, but the error catastrophe theory of aging has been generally disregarded by researchers due to a lack of evidence for an age-related increase in protein errors. Another theory of aging, proposed at roughly the same time, is Leo Szilard's two-hit model of somatic mutation accumulation, which assumed a linear increase in mutations over time but explained the nonlinear pattern of human mortality through a mechanism of genetic and cellular redundancy which kept mortality low until the redundancy was exhausted, at which point mortality rapidly rose. Here, we synthesize the two theories, along with the latest advances in genomics research. We propose a new catastrophe theory of aging, this time with somatic mutations as the primary agent of the feedback loop. Similar to protein errors affecting translation itself, somatic mutations in genes involved in DNA replication and repair would lead to a feedback loop of exponentially increasing mutation load. The difference from protein errors is that somatic mutations would mainly affect gene regulatory regions rather than the much smaller part of the genome encoding protein-coding information. Although the self-stimulating accumulation of somatic mutations is not mutually exclusive with the Szilard-based loss of redundancy, we present evidence that suggests that the accumulated mutations themselves could be numerous enough to cause mortality. Finally, we acknowledge the limits of our current knowledge and propose a course of research practices that will help to confirm or refute our model and advance the field of aging research as a whole.

Mutation and catastrophe in the aging genome

In the 1960s, Leslie Orgel proposed what is now known as the error catastrophe theory of aging, arguing that errors in protein translation that reduce the fidelity of the protein-translating enzymes would lead to a feedback loop of increasingly inaccurate protein synthesis, terminating in the death of the organism. This mechanism of aging would be consistent with the exponential increase of mortality observed in humans, but the error catastrophe theory of aging has been generally disregarded by researchers due to a lack of evidence for an age-related increase in protein errors. Another theory of aging, proposed at roughly the same time, is Leo Szilard's two-hit model of somatic mutation accumulation, which assumed a linear increase in mutations over time but explained the nonlinear pattern of human mortality through a mechanism of genetic and cellular redundancy which kept mortality low until the redundancy was exhausted, at which point mortality rapidly rose. Here, we synthesize the two theories, along with the latest advances in genomics research. We propose a new catastrophe theory of aging, this time with somatic mutations as the primary agent of the feedback loop. Similar to protein errors affecting translation itself, somatic mutations in genes involved in DNA replication and repair would lead to a feedback loop of exponentially increasing mutation load. The difference from protein errors is that somatic mutations would mainly affect gene regulatory regions rather than the much smaller part of the genome encoding protein-coding information. Although the self-stimulating accumulation of somatic mutations is not mutually exclusive with the Szilard-based loss of redundancy, we present evidence that suggests that the accumulated mutations themselves could be numerous enough to cause mortality. Finally, we acknowledge the limits of our current knowledge and propose a course of research practices that will help to confirm or refute our model and advance the field of aging research as a whole.

Leo Szilard: Biologist and Peace-Maker

Leo Szilard: Biologist and Peace-Maker

Leo Szilard Lectureship Award: Arguing from the Periphery

Leo Szilard Lectureship Award: Arguing from the Periphery

1932, a watershed year in nuclear physics

The consequences, for good and ill, of that annus mirabilis of discovery and invention are still very much with us.

Haunted Measurements: Demonic Work and Time in Experimentation

Physics has a long history of employing demons as thought experiments in order to probe the limits of human knowledge. Maxwell’s demon is such a thought experiment: a molecule-sorting demon invented in 1878 by James Clerk Maxwell in order to con/test the universal validity of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics not only postulates a universal increase of entropy and an “arrow of time” but also has been based on human ignorance, the assumption that there is an objective world independent of us that we can know only incompletely. Maxwell’s demon figures the scientist’s ability to acquire knowledge about the microscopic molecular world but ostensibly without the expenditure of work. This essay offers a rereading of Leo Szilard’s influential account of Maxwell’s demon (1929), which explores the influence of human intelligence on scientific measurements in relation to an increase of entropy and the irreversibility of measurements. Opening up ambiguities in Szilard’s account of measurement and memory and comparing it to quantum mechanical experiments (the quantum erasure effect), the author reads both through Karen Barad’s onto-epistemological framework of “agential realism” and Jacques Derrida’s ghostly logic of time, proposing that all measurements are haunted and that scientific activities, reconfigured as intra-active work, constitute time, rather than accumulating knowledge in time. At stake in such a deconstruction of the scientific “arrow of time” from within physics is the possibility of making a difference that matters in science or, in other words, accounting for transformation and rearticulation work as physical work.

The Pumpkin or the Tiger? Michael Polanyi, Frederick Soddy, and Anticipating Emerging Technologies

Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle that works like the board game in the movie “Jumanji”: When you finish, whatever the puzzle portrays becomes real. The children playing “Jumanji” learn to prepare for the reality that emerges from the next throw of the dice. But how would this work for the puzzle of scientific research? How do you prepare for unlocking the secrets of the atom, or assembling from the bottom-up nanotechnologies with unforeseen properties – especially when completion of such puzzles lies decades after the first scattered pieces are tentatively assembled? In the inaugural issue of this journal, Michael Polanyi argued that because the progress of science is unpredictable, society must only move forward with solving the puzzle until the picture completes itself. Decades earlier, Frederick Soddy argued that once the potential for danger reveals itself, one must reorient the whole of one’s work to avoid it. While both scientists stake out extreme positions, Soddy’s approach – together with the action taken by the like-minded Leo Szilard – provides a foundation for the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. This paper narrates the intertwining stories of Polanyi, Soddy and Szilard, revealing how anticipation influenced governance in the case of atomic weapons and how Polanyi’s claim in “The Republic of Science” of an unpredictable and hence ungovernable science is faulty on multiple levels.

Science and Conscience: The Life of James Franck.

James (1882-1964) was one of the twentieth century's most respected scientists, known both for his contributions to physics and for his moral courage. During the 1920s, was a prominent figure in the German physics community. His research into the structure of the atom earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1925. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, resigned his professorship at Gottingen in protest against anti-Jewish policies. He soon emigrated to the United States, where, at the University of Chicago, he began innovative research into photosynthesis. When the Second World War began, was recruited for the Manhattan Project. With Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard, he created a controlled nuclear chain reaction which led to the creation of a nuclear weapon. During the final months of the war, however, grew concerned about the consequences of using such a weapon. He became the principal author of the celebrated Franck Report, which urged Truman not to use the atomic bomb and warned that a nuclear arms race against the Soviet Union would be an inevitable result. After the War, turned his attention back to photosynthesis; his discoveries influenced chemistry as well as physics.

Special Tasks and Sacred Secrets on Soviet Atomic Espionage

A careful review of the depiction of Soviet atomic espionage provided in Pavel Sudoplatov's Special Tasks and Sacred Secrets by Jerrold and Leona Schecter demonstrates how faulty memories, Soviet intelligence agency disinformation, sloppy citations, misplaced trust in documents provided by unidentified sources under unexplained circumstances, and egregious lapses in logic and judgment can lead to conclusions unsupported by evidence. The accounts of Soviet atomic espionage in both books are neither reliable nor credible. In particular, the assertions that Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard consciously cooperated with and assisted Soviet atomic intelligence are without credibility.

Experimental demonstration of information-to-energy conversion and validation of the generalized Jarzynski equality

In 1929, Leo Szilard invented a feedback protocol in which a hypothetical intelligence called Maxwell's demon pumps heat from an isothermal environment and transduces it to work. After an intense controversy that lasted over eighty years; it was finally clarified that the demon's role does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics, implying that we can convert information to free energy in principle. Nevertheless, experimental demonstration of this information-to-energy conversion has been elusive. Here, we demonstrate that a nonequilibrium feedback manipulation of a Brownian particle based on information about its location achieves a Szilard-type information-energy conversion. Under real-time feedback control, the particle climbs up a spiral-stairs-like potential exerted by an electric field and obtains free energy larger than the amount of work performed on it. This enables us to verify the generalized Jarzynski equality, or a new fundamental principle of "information-heat engine" which converts information to energy by feedback control.

Interview with Murray Gell-Mann

An interview in two sessions, July 1997, with Murray Gell-Mann, Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics, emeritus. Dr. Gell-Mann was on the faculty of Caltech’s Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy from 1955 until 1993. In this anecdotal interview tracing his career to 1960, he begins by recalling his Manhattan childhood during the Depression, family background, early education at Columbia Grammar School. Discusses his undergraduate years at Yale, graduate work at MIT with Victor Weisskopf, courses at Harvard with Norman Ramsey and Julian Schwinger—followed in 1951 by two terms at Institute for Advanced Study, working with Francis Low on a problem in quantum field theory. Summer 1951, University of Illinois, works on complex systems with Keith Brueckner; interaction with John von Neumann. Joins University of Chicago’s Institute for Nuclear Studies, headed by Enrico Fermi; recalls such colleagues as M. L. Goldberger, Leo Szilard, Harold Urey, Gerald Wasserburg; works on dispersion relations and pseudoscalar meson theory with Goldberger. At University of Illinois, summer 1953, works with Low on elementary-particle field theory, invents the renormalization group; comments on later contributions of Petermann & Stueckelberg, his student Kenneth Wilson. His early work at Caltech on what was later called S-matrix theory; comments on contribution to superstring theory. Meets future wife, Margaret Dow; travels in Scotland with her, 1954; their marriage. Recruited to Caltech by R. P. Feynman; life in Pasadena; visits Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, summer 1955; Spain, France, and the U.K. Back at Caltech fall 1956, teaches quantum mechanics course. Recollections of Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer, Stewart Harrison. Comments on undergraduate education at Caltech and vain efforts to promote behavioral and social sciences there. Work at RAND, 1956; paper with Brueckner; objections by Brueckner and Tatsuro Sawada; contributions of Bill Karzas, Don DuBois, Jeffrey Goldstone. Annual Review of Nuclear Science article on “last stand of the universal Fermi Interaction” with Arthur Rosenfeld; related work by Marshak & Sudarshan; Feynman’s approach; their collaboration; later work by Yang & Lee. Comments on origins of the Eightfold Way. Preoccupation with symmetry, supermultiplets, weak and strong interactions, Yang-Mills theory. Collaboration with Maurice Levy et al., in France, 1959, on the axial vector current in beta decay.

The Szilard Hypothesis on the Nature of Aging Revisited

This year marks the 50th anniversary of a nearly forgotten hypothesis on aging by Leo Szilard, best known for his pioneering work in nuclear physics, his participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II, his opposition to the nuclear arms race in the postwar era, and his pioneering ideas in biology. Given a specific set of assumptions, Szilard hypothesized that the major reason for the phenomenon of aging was aging hits, e.g., by ionizing radiation, to the gene-bearing chromosomes and presented a mathematical target-hit model enabling the calculation of the average and maximum life span of a species, as well as the influence of increased exposure to DNA-damaging factors on life expectancy. While many new findings have cast doubt on the specific features of the model, this was the first serious effort to posit accumulated genetic damage as a cause of senescence. Here, we review Szilard's assumptions in the light of current knowledge on aging and reassess his mathematical model in an attempt to reach a conclusion on the relevance of Szilard's aging hypothesis today.

Ethnic Modernism (review)

Reviewed by: Ethnic Modernism Henry Veggian Ethnic Modernism. By Werner Sollors. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2008. Werner Sollors has cultivated a distinctive habit of sculpting new arguments from rutted and well-traveled key words. "Descent," "consent," ethnicity," and "thematic criticism" are certainly not his creations but Sollors has often reconfigured them like an urban planner who makes a familiar place appear as a newly invented city. Indeed, his explanation of the term "invention" in the 1989 essay "The Invention of Ethnicity" is exemplary of this habit, which results from the pedestrian finesse of Sollors's prose: its arrangements are direct yet fluid, its vocabulary repetitious yet heterodox, and its arguments explore tangents of familiar themes that were forgotten or dismissed. Ethnic Modernism attempts to do for "modernism" what Sollors has done for those previously cited keywords. What is most interesting about this particular example is that Sollors's must consider the term in relation to his own prior writings on it. The words "modern," modernity," and "modernism" recur often in Sollors's early works, where they rarely synonymous. For example, the subtitle of his first monograph, published in 1978 with the title Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones: The Quest for a "Populist Modernism," invoked the Symbolist tradition of using the poor, the ethnic, the racial underclass as its subject. In that work Sollors represented Jones/Baraka as a "black Baudelaire" using modernist literary technique to engage matters of racial identity. The book oriented Sollors's career towards what he then rightly considered to be an undervalued relationship between modernist aesthetics and sociological categories of ethnicity and race. Over several decades of writing, the former came to trouble the latter. While explaining the term "ethnicity" in a later essay, Sollors distinguished between a medieval "ethnic" past and modernist dissociation from it. More recently, Sollors stressed in an introduction to Dumas' novel Georges that unlike Dumas' contemporary readers, "modern" readers would require footnotes to explain certain 19th century allusions. Time, subjectivity, irony, society, interpretation, reception: each seems to inflect "modernism" in a different way. They also conflict with one another, leaving many questions unresolved. Was modernism an [End Page 118] anti-ethnic and anti-racial force? Had modernism disrupted the recovery of ethnic history or made it possible? Ethnic Modernism engages the opportunity to follow these matters which had come to resemble traffic jams. There is a powerful dynamic at work in the title Ethnic Modernism insofar as the first term represents the principal avenue of his career and the second resembles an unpaved and neglected side street. Beginning with the book's introductory essay, Sollors stresses the simple but important distinction between the standard definition of modernity as "sociological and technological developments" and the "aesthetic movements" of modernism. (10) This distinction does not aim to merely invert cause (modernity) and effect (modernism); rather, Sollors uses examples of mass transit to connect the chapters, forming a grid, as it were, of recurring and interlocking points. The book's narrative will often turn on these points and move the work in a new direction. The setting is a large city. It is any and every city. Stein's Lena rides hopelessly on a streetcar, Saroyan's narrator observes morbid subway faces. In a short sketch by Mary Antin a streetcar conductor scolds two littering Italian children. Faulkner's narration in The Sound and the Fury becomes a "stream of consciousness trolley" (122) and "transport" becomes a trope for the neo-mystical modernism of Jean Toomer's prose. The examples are pervasive. Henry Roth, Mike Gold, Richard Wright, and Leo Szilard are also invoked, to name only a few of the ethnic modernists who turned the "streetcar settings" of modernity into aesthetic boundary-crossing. But where the aesthetics of an early ethnic modernism hoped that modernity could be turned against itself, the technologies of modernity eventually prevail by reinforcing segregation, internment, and imprisonment. It is truly a binary relationship, in the literal sense of the word, which means a pair of railway tracks, on which pre-WWI modernism and modernity travel towards an eventual Cold War collision. The book's second chapter concludes with Sollors's assessment that Gertrude Stein "had set up a model...

Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon by Peter D. Smith

MLR, 104.1, 2009 195 wifeanddaughterin Mexico (as supposed 'agitators' ina time ofanti-Communist 'witch-hunts') causedhim tofallsilent as a poet fortwenty-five years. He was able to return toNew York (and subsequently San Francisco) only in 1958 (the year in which,ironically enough, EzraPoundwas himself arriving back inItalystill giving aMussolini-style salute,revealing, as a photograph shows,a rather sweaty armpit, ashewalkeddown thegangway). TheOppens,whileadmiring, had felt Poundwas wrongtodesert America 'inthefirst place',and,despitea family background remi niscent ofEdith Wharton'sAgeofInnocence (oraffluence?) (1920), Oppen's chosen form ofAmericanism is shown by his later training as a carpenter, with nuances of Arthur Miller,The LastYankee(1991). Oppen is a subtle and a rewarding poet, and all readers will be grateful for the probingtreatment ofhim thisfine book offers, especiallyasmuch of thevirtue andvirtuosity of the poems resides, asPeter Nichollsshows,ina subtle useof 'little words' including prepositions andconjunctions, and,frequently, anelliptical syntax. Forthisreasonsomereaders mightoccasionally becomea little recidivist andnostal gicforthe'essential gaudiness' of the poetry ofHighModernism (including that of Wallace Stevens, whose phrasethisis),or the'sort-of-maudit' poetssuchasLowell andBerryman, orpowerful if prolix versions ofAmericarendered innovelssuchas RichardFord'sIndependence Day (1995)orPhilip Roth'sAmerican Pastoral(1997). Butanyone who readsthissubtly probing bookwillbe persuadedto make roomin hisor her intellectual repertoire for Oppen. I have found onlyone slight blemish here,the ascription ofa linein'Prufrock', asusedandaltered by Oppen, toThe Waste Land, a rare and no doubt momentary lapse as this book was drawing to a close (p.192).Perhapsit mightbe corrected ina future edition;Ihope there willbe one. LONDON EDWARDNEILL Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and theDream of theSuperweapon. By PETERD. SMITH. London:Allen Lane-Penguin. 2007. xxii+553 PP. ?20. ISBN 978-0-713-99815-3. TakingDr. Strangelove as hismain reference-point, Peter D. Smithsetsout togive us a narrative of thehistory of thesuperweapon, whose originhe datesmore or lesstothediscovery of radioactivity. One of the main strengths of this accountlies inSmith'sability tocombinescience, history, and fiction inan engrossing cultural history ofoneof theconceptslying at the heartof the ColdWar. It may soundodd, but the superweapon was conceived in a utopian spirit as the device which would end war once and forall. This ideawas from thevery beginning politically naive and internally flawed. Smithrightly presents H. G.Wells's 1914novelThe WorldSetFree asa formative text inimagining how the worldcouldbe reborn through atomic war. HereWellswas technologically prescient, butalsodisturbingly unconcerned about themillions who would have to be atomized to realize this dream. Itwas a dream made possiblebyan enterprising scientist, andSmithcharts out fascinatingly how thefigure of thescientist fluctuated in theperiod fromtheturn of thetwentieth 196 Reviews century up to the 1960S between the polarized extremes of a role as saviour of humanity or its villainous destroyer. The history of thedevelopment of theatomicbomb iswell known,butSmith adds a further dimensionto thestory by showing hownuclear warwas imagined infiction as soonas radioactivity was discovered. His discussionincludes relatively unknown worksoffiction suchasFrankStockton's TheGreat War Syndicate (1889) andRoyNorton'sTheVanishing Fleets(1907); inthelatter, battleships aredestroyed bythe'most deadlyengineeverconceived'.Indeedthegenreoffuture-wars fiction, an important subsetof sciencefiction, emergedin thisperiodand novelsoffered ameans ofvisualizingtheimplementation ofnewmilitarytechnology. Not only that: novelssometimes suggested newpossibilities. Leo Szilard'snotionofanuclear chainreaction was partly suggested byThe WorldSetFree,and thehotline between Washingtonand Moscowwas taken from Peter George'sRedAlert(1958),the novel onwhichKubrickbasedDr. Strangelove. Theultimate superweapon, the'dirty' nuclearbomb, was first discussedin1950, theyear aftertheSovietUnion detonatedtheirfirst atomicdevice.This is the period when thearmsracebegan toaccelerate visibly, a process whichwas satirized in manyworks,including Bernard Wolfe'sneglected blackcomedyLimbo (1952). Smith shows that control in every sense lay at the heart of thepursuit of the super weapon, but he rather understates thenature of the arms race,which tomany at the time seemedtobe running at its own momentum. His subtitle promises a revelation of whowas therealStrangelove, butofcoursethere was no single prototype. Kubrick devisedhimas a compositefigure, embodying a technological militarism divorced from humanity. Leo Szilard would not fitsince he was a Hungarian Jewish refugee fromNazism who by the late 1950s had begun to express his guilt over the atom bomb insciencefiction stories. Other possiblecandidatesincludeJohn vonNeu mann,HermanKahn (whosestudy On Thermonuclear War influenced Kubrick), or EdwardTeller, who issatirized inBurdickand Wheeler's 1962nuclearthriller Fail Safe.This isnot reallythepoint,however. Kubrick was demonstrating an unholy alliancebetweenthe US military, the politicalestablishment, and scientists, includ ingthose Nazis broughtto Americaunder OperationPaperclip.Inhiscoda Smith notesthattheSoviet Union did indeeddevisea doomsday...

Approaches to Teaching Marguerite De Navarre's 'Heptaméron' by Colette H. Winn

196 Reviews century up to the 1960S between the polarized extremes of a role as saviour of humanity or its villainous destroyer. The history of thedevelopment of theatomicbomb iswell known,butSmith adds a further dimensionto thestory by showing hownuclear warwas imagined infiction as soonas radioactivity was discovered. His discussionincludes relatively unknown worksoffiction suchasFrankStockton's TheGreat War Syndicate (1889) andRoyNorton'sTheVanishing Fleets(1907); inthelatter, battleships aredestroyed bythe'most deadlyengineeverconceived'.Indeedthegenreoffuture-wars fiction, an important subsetof sciencefiction, emergedin thisperiodand novelsoffered ameans ofvisualizingtheimplementation ofnewmilitarytechnology. Not only that: novelssometimes suggested newpossibilities. Leo Szilard'snotionofanuclear chainreaction was partly suggested byThe WorldSetFree,and thehotline between Washingtonand Moscowwas taken from Peter George'sRedAlert(1958),the novel onwhichKubrickbasedDr. Strangelove. Theultimate superweapon, the'dirty' nuclearbomb, was first discussedin1950, theyear aftertheSovietUnion detonatedtheirfirst atomicdevice.This is the period when thearmsracebegan toaccelerate visibly, a process whichwas satirized in manyworks,including Bernard Wolfe'sneglected blackcomedyLimbo (1952). Smith shows that control in every sense lay at the heart of thepursuit of the super weapon, but he rather understates thenature of the arms race,which tomany at the time seemedtobe running at its own momentum. His subtitle promises a revelation of whowas therealStrangelove, butofcoursethere was no single prototype. Kubrick devisedhimas a compositefigure, embodying a technological militarism divorced from humanity. Leo Szilard would not fitsince he was a Hungarian Jewish refugee fromNazism who by the late 1950s had begun to express his guilt over the atom bomb insciencefiction stories. Other possiblecandidatesincludeJohn vonNeu mann,HermanKahn (whosestudy On Thermonuclear War influenced Kubrick), or EdwardTeller, who issatirized inBurdickand Wheeler's 1962nuclearthriller Fail Safe.This isnot reallythepoint,however. Kubrick was demonstrating an unholy alliancebetweenthe US military, the politicalestablishment, and scientists, includ ingthose Nazis broughtto Americaunder OperationPaperclip.Inhiscoda Smith notesthattheSoviet Union did indeeddevisea doomsday weapons system similar tothat described byStrangelove. What, onewonders,happenedtothat system after thecollapseofCommunism? UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL DAVID SEED ApproachestoTeaching MargueritedeNavarre's 'Heptame'ron'. Ed. byCOLETTE H. WINN. New York: Modern LanguageAssociationofAmerica. 2007. xv+ 247 pp. $19.75. ISBN 978-o-87352-592-3. Despite itsapparent accessibility, MargueritedeNavarre's Heptame'ron isa decep tively complextext:itspolyvocality and narrativeintricacy is coupledwith the slipperiness of itsnarrator. Moreover,thefrequently bewildering behaviour of the MLR, 104.1, 2009 197 characters inthestories servestoproblematize whatatfirst appearstobe a relatively clearsetof moral tales, directly recounted through a female'authorial' voice.In the light ofsuchcomplexity, this newvolumeof twenty-seven essays, dividedintofour parts,servestwovery welcome roles:tosuggest awide range of entry-points for teachers intothis pluraltext; and toindicate (bothtoteachers and to more experi encedstudents) how theprocessofscholarship, insometimes unfamiliar areas,can enhanceourunderstanding of the work.In thefirst setofessaystheimportance of the historical andcultural backgroundisemphasized. An initiation intocontextual issues willbeofparticular importance for novicestudents, whomaybeginbystudy ingthetextinexcerpts. Marguerite'sclose involvement with thedevelopment of Christian humanisminFrance,theinfluences of theconductliterature of thetime, and thelegacy ofcourtly loveareall indicated as dimensions which 'setthescene' fora study of the work.One particularly relevant teaching approach,suggested by SusanBroomhall,is toconsiderthepublishing history of thetext,inwhich the bookwas made more 'suitable' to thegeneralreaderthrough male intervention. Thisapproach,like manyothersinthevolume,emphasizesthefactthat no text can come to itsreaderina pure,unmediatedform. A further valuablecontribution to ourunderstanding ofthetext's background isPhilipFord'sessayon sexualequality andevangelical Neoplatonism. For the modern reader, itisoften difficult toviewthe relationships between characters inthe bookotherthan negatively. However, Ford's essayindicates amore positive message,namelythat men andwomen can achieve fulfilment inlove, and thatlovecanhaveanennobling aswell asdebasingeffect. The second set of essays offersa variety of 'critical tools' thatmay be used when teaching theHeptame'ron: these include a focus on the text's narratology; an awareness of its relationship withothergenressuchas the'histoire tragique'; thetheme ofcomedy and laughter; and the work'sconnection with intertexts suchasErasmus'sGodly Feast.This setof essaysalso providesfurther illuminating reflections on gender issues, such as theway inwhich female consciousness is narrated during the Re naissance periodand theimportance ofmale relationships inconstructing thetext. FranSois Rigolot'sessay, inparticular, indicates howaneclectic approachtoreading Story xxxii,through the application ofaesthetic, ethical, historical, andpoliticalap proaches, addsmultifarious layers and shadesof meaningtoanapparently straight forward allegory, thereby militating againstsimplistic symbolic interpretations. The third set of essays is useful for those wishing to use other texts byMarguerite de Navarre,suchasherletters, poetry, and theatre, aswellearly manuscripts ofthe Hep tameron and illustrated worksby Marguerite. Taken together, thesecontributions support theview that far frombeing an anomaly in Marguerite's literaryenterprise, theHeptameron is fully in keeping with the ideology and artistic procedures of...