Big science and the bomb -- Long before the bomb: the origins of big science -- Science, the military and industry: the great war and after -- From fission to mission: the origins of the Manhattan project -- Los Alamos: little science on a big scale? -- Thin man becomes fat man: the plutonium implosion programme -- From trinity to victory: making and using the first nuclear weapons -- After the bomb: big science and national security -- From big science to megascience: the age of the accelerators -- The invention of 'big science': large-scale science as pathological science -- Death in Texas: the end of megascience? -- The myths of big science.