Nazi arrogance handed the atomic bomb to America | Sam Kean

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In the final years of World War II, an ex-major league baseball player walked into a physics lecture in Switzerland carrying a pistol and a cyanide pill with orders to shoot Werner Heisenberg dead if the wrong words came out of his mouth.

That mission was just one thread in a sprawling, chaotic operation involving rogue scientists, OSS spies, a Kennedy, and Norwegian commandos, all trying to determine how close the Nazis were to an atomic bomb.

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About Sam Kean:

Sam Kean is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books. He spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a kid, and now lives in Washington, D.C. His stories have appeared in National Geographic, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Slate, among other places, and his work has been featured on NPR’s “Radiolab”, “Science Friday”, and “All Things Considered.” The Bastard Brigade was a “Science Friday” book of the year, while Caesar’s Last Breath was the Guardian science book of the year. The Disappearing Spoon was a runner-up for the Royal Society book of the year. The Violinist’s Thumb and The Dueling Neurosurgeons were nominated for PEN’s literary science writing award, and Dinner with King Tut was named a best book of the year by the New Yorker, Smithsonian, Amazon, and the History Channel, and won the Non-Obvious Book Award for most original book.