Curve+I+ES

Emma Smith

"The Curve of Binding Energy-I"

John McPhee's “The Curve of Binding Energy-I” is a profile of theoretical physicist, Theodore B. Taylor. However, the main focus of Part I is more on the intricacies of nuclear bombs, and their threat. McPhee uses Ted Taylor as a way to get inside the world of nuclear physics, and to show the moral complexities of the issue. It was published in 1973, at the height of the Cold War, when decisions concerning nuclear bombs were at the forefront. Reading this article today, it’s hard to understand how pivotal these ideas and judgments were. I found this article to be incredibly interesting, especially because of its historical context. McPhee wrote about a world that held the existence of the planet in its palm. The discoveries that McPhee writes about put America and the rest of the world on the brink of destruction. The subject matter of this article is controversial and highly complex, but McPhee was able to narrow in on one character, and therefore make it much more accessible to the reader.

The opening section of the article uses snippets of quotes from different chemists and physicists to show how ludicrous the idea of nuclear warfare is. One quote says, “Bomb damage is vastly exaggerated.” Another one says, “After a bomb goes off, and the fire ends, quiet descends again, and life continues.” McPhee didn’t have to say anything, but through his use of quotes, we understand his position on the issue. This was an effective way to bring the reader into the world McPhee is setting up. He describes people’s worries about nuclear warfare, and other people’s dismissal of it. In the first page, McPhee sets up the two sides. He spends the rest of the piece jumping back and forth between the particulars of Ted Taylor’s life, and the notion of nuclear warfare as a whole.

At one point I was reading about the intricacies of Uranium, and the next I was reading about Ted Taylor’s love of skating. There is a lot of information in this piece, but McPhee juggles the two sides of his story, and effectively creates an atmosphere for the reader. Ted Taylor is at first set up as a counterpoint to the professionals McPhee quoted at the beginning of the article. He sees the potential that scientists have to use something that they don’t truly understand. As the article progresses however, Ted Taylor begins to evolve. We begin to see different sides of his character, through stories about him and his wife, to letters he writes home to his parents as a young man. There are no easy answers in this article. McPhee isn’t trying to set up a problem and quickly solve it. He is simply setting up an incredibly complex issue, and showing us how the characters in this story react. Ted Taylor is an ordinary man who is at the centre of something that could change the world. The most interesting part of this article was witnessing the moral decisions that Ted Taylor was forced to make.

John McPhee sets up a world in “The Curve of Binding Energy-I” that I knew very little about. He throws in a lot of information, but he always comes back to his subject, Ted Taylor. He is weaving the story of Taylor’s life with the discoveries made by scientists. In the end, he creates a narrative that is heavy with moral complexities. McPhee is leading the reader through a journey, one that is at the same time personal and universal.