Weve all heard of the Military Industrial Complex. Indeed, we were warned that we guard against undue influence by that then-new termed institution by President Eisenhower as he prepared to leave office.

But long before America felt compelled to have a permanent armaments industry, many men were fast at work to ensure that we would be able to defend ourselves against the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and others who wanted to knock America from its perch as world leader. One such man was Ernest Lawrence. A Nobel Prize-Winning nuclear physicist, Lawrence was behind the Cyclotron--the fore-father of the Large Hadron Collider and myriad other amazing scientific inventions.

Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize-Winning journalist, writer, blogger and author. He has written Big Science, a tremendously enjoyable and readable biography of Lawrence. We recommend it highly.