Chain Reactions

“Chain Reactions is full of bright detail, as Santos lays out the ways that uranium has been found and extracted from Earth, penetrating human life.”–Undark Magazine“Ms. Santos explores both the academic and popular literature to unearth long-forgotten stories, both entertaining and horrifying, that capture the broader impact of uranium on our society.”–The Wall Street Journal“Chain Reactions is an essential read for those interested in the history and future of our applications of the atomic nucleus. It is enlightening, engaging, tragic, funny, accurate, and optimistic, all at once. Lucy Jane Santos’ research and analysis have uncovered nearly-forgotten archival information and cleanly extracted an authoritative reality from stories riddled with myth and controversy. I’ve engaged with nuclear history for the past 20 years, and yet still learned something new and important on each page.” –Nick Touran, author of What is Nuclear“A fascinating and richly detailed history charting an illuminating course through the story of one of the most useful and destructive elements.”–Kat Arney, science writer and broadcaster“Full of surprising facts from a tumultuous past, Lucy Jane Santos offers an intriguing and entertaining story of a powerful element with revolutionary potential.”–Marco Visscher, author of The Power of Nuclear: The Rise, Fall and Return of Our Mightiest Energy Source“Uranium has lurked at the centre of some of our strangest visions and strongest fears in the modern world. Lucy Jane Santos has written a light, entertaining and revealing history of a heavy element.”–Professor Jon Agar, University College LondonPraise for Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium:

“As Lucy Jane Santos observes in Half Lives, ‘It is not hard to pinpoint exactly why it was this substance (which Curie referred to as ‘my beautiful radium’) that eventually became the focus of both public fascination and of entrepreneurial zeal.”– “The Wall Street Journal”

Lucy Jane Santos, author of Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium, is an expert in the history of the twentieth-century with a particular interest in the cultural history of radioactivity. She is now the Executive Secretary of the British Society for the History of Science. Lucy lives in England.