Science in Real Lives: Chain Reaction

The Chain Reaction: Pioneers of Nuclear Science

by Karen Fox

This is one of the main textbooks for First Son's eighth grade science course, designed mostly based on the Mater Amabilis™ ™ Level 4 recommendations, one of which is this book. For those who are members of the Mater Amabilis™ facebook group (and you should be!), you can find our plans in the files, called "Level 4 Science."

The chapters cover:

1. Marie Curie, radioactivity
2. Ernest Rutherford, the nucleus
3. Enrico Fermi, chain reactions
4. Ernest O. Lawrence and J. Robert Oppenheimer, "big science" - enormous machines, bombs, and the budgets that made them
5. Maria Goeppert-Mayer, why some elements are radioactive
6. Andrei Sakharov, hydrogen bomb

I appreciated the inclusion of two female scientists in a field that is heavily male. I want my children to know that God has given both men and women talents and interests that range from physics to music to baking, and that the important decision we must all make is how to direct those talents for his work on earth. Being a woman in a male-dominated field is difficult, sometimes in the ways Maria Goeppert-Mayer experienced it, but God didn't make women less intelligent than men.

Along with an explanation of their scientific studies and achievements are anecdotes and personal information that illustrate the human foibles and virtues you would find in any field.  For example, the chapter on Enrico Fermi tells how when he couldn't afford to heat his home adequately, he would sit on his hands and turn the pages of his book with his tongue. Once, he and his friends set off a stink bomb during a lecture and narrowly avoided being expelled.

The chapter on Maria Goeppert-Mayer includes her experience as an immigrant to the United States (after marrying an American) and hosting fleeing countrymen from the war in Europe as well as the sexism she faced as a female scientist in quantum mechanics. Andrei Sakharov lived in the oppressive Soviet Union, struggled openly for human rights, and was even exiled to Siberia for his views.

First Son read one chapter a week, spread over two separate days. I asked for a written narration each day and received his usual singe paragraph. While he wasn't verbose, I think the chapters lend themselves well to a narration. A more interested student, or one who tends to read faster, could probably easily read a chapter in a single session and finish the book in just three weeks. If you would like a biographical essay for a composition or English paper, any of the scientists introduced in this book would make an excellent choice.

Throughout the book, the scientific questions asked and the steady progress in finding answers (and more questions) are part of the story, woven into the lives so that a reader will encounter them almost like a mystery. It makes an excellent introduction to quantum mechanics.