Past Wheaton Resident Physicist/Novelist Tackled The Manhattan Project

Former Wheaton resident Dr. Tom Wolfram was inspired to apply his physicist credentials (which are many) to writing spellbinding novels beginning 25 years ago.

With the release of the movie "Oppenheimer," Wolfram's novel The Dragon Tamers adds an additional dimension - a fictional storyline about sabotage - to that of scientists rushing to develop the first atomic bomb.

The Dragon Tamers is available in soft cover or as an E-book: https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/554738-the-dragon-tamers

The Dragon Tamers is a techno-thriller - with espionage and romance added. The hero, who is fictitious character Dr. Michael Ericksson, joins the Manhattan Project and America's frantic effort to beat the Germans in developing an atomic bomb. He becomes embroiled in stopping a Nazi infiltrator from sabotaging the project. Other characters in the novel include historical figures such as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty, as well as Enrico Fermi and General Leslie Groves who headed the operation.

"I was first fascinated with The Manhattan Project in graduate school and a few decades later, decided to write a novel about this momentous event in history," said Tom Wolfram, who earned a Ph.D. from University of California before becoming Director of Physics and Chemistry at Rockwell Science Center. He later was Chairman of Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at University of Missouri, followed by a stint at Amoco in Naperville, Illinois. From there he spun off a technology company that currently makes laser-optical communications products.

Tom Wolfram has written over 100 scientific articles as well as several science books - the latest published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press. He is also an accomplished portrait painter. In addition to The Dragon Tamers (2002) his novels include The Venture (1998) and The Achilles Project (2022). Wolfram now lives in Henderson, Nevada.