Tuxedo Park
by Jennet Conant · first published 2002
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Biography of Alfred Loomis, covering his wartime role in the invention of radar and the rise of big science. It is of interest to technical readers and useful for anyone studying the history of radar.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"In the fall of 1940, as German bombers flew over London and with America not yet at war, a small team of British scientists on orders from Winston Churchill carried out a daring transatlantic mission. The British unveiled their most valuable military secret in a clandestine meeting with American nuclear physicists at the Tuxedo Park mansion of a mysterious Wall Street tycoon, Alfred Lee Loomis. Powerful, handsome, and enormously wealthy, Loomis had for years led a double life, spending his days brokering huge deals and his weekends working with the world's leading scientists in his deluxe pr
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"Tuxedo Park" by Jennet Conant. The book is the biography of Alfred Lee Loomis, a tycoon that played an important role in World War II and somehow did not received the deserved acknowledgement. It is an interesting…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗"Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II" Covers the invention of radar, "big science", involvement in the Manhattan project. https://www.amazon.com/Tuxedo-Park-Street-Science-Changed/dp...…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…Two relevant books I've read recently(ish) that I'd recommend to anyone interested in learning more would be 1) The Invention That Changed the World by Robert Buderi and 2) a biography of Alfred Loomis, Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant.
on “MIT Radiation Laboratory” ↗…Reisner - Water infrastructure in the American West. 19. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - The invention of flight. 20. Walt Disney by Neal Gabler - Vision and innovation in entertainment. 21. Tuxedo Park by Jennet Conant - Invention of radar. 22. Insisting on the Impossible - Edwin Land and instant photography. 23. The Logic of Failure - Understanding and avoiding failure. 24. The Big Short by Michael…
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗He was also a big figure in MIT's WWII history. If you're interested in such things, check out "Tuxedo Park". The main focus of the book is Alfred Loomis, but quite a lot of the other characters of the era make appearances. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Tuxedo-Park/Jennet-Co...
on “'Atomic Energy' Book Signed by Einstein, Oppenheimer, Bohr, Enola Gay Crew” ↗