De Paris a Hiroshima (1900-1945)
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Rutherford's Nuclear World: the Story of the Discovery of the Nuc
Rutherford's Nuclear World: The Story of the Discovery of the Nuc... http://www.aip.org/history/exhibits/rutherford/sections/atop-physic... HOME SECTIONS CREDITS EXHIBIT HALL ABOUT US rutherford's explore the atom learn more more history of learn about aip's nuclear world with rutherford about this site physics exhibits history programs Atop the Physics Wave ShareShareShareShareShareMore 9 RUTHERFORD BACK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1919–1937 Sections ← Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next → In 1962, John Cockcroft (1897–1967) reflected back on the “Miraculous Year” ( Annus mirabilis ) of 1932 in the Cavendish Laboratory: “One month it was the neutron, another month the transmutation of the light elements; in another the creation of radiation of matter in the form of pairs of positive and negative electrons was made visible to us by Professor Blackett's cloud chamber, with its tracks curled some to the left and some to the right by powerful magnetic fields.” Rutherford reigned over the Cavendish Lab from 1919 until his death in 1937. The Cavendish Lab in the 1920s and 30s is often cited as the beginning of modern “big science.” Dozens of researchers worked in teams on interrelated problems. Yet much of the work there used simple, inexpensive devices — the sort of thing Rutherford is famous for. And the lab had many competitors: in Paris, Berlin, and even in the U.S. Rutherford became Cavendish Professor and director of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, following the It is tempting to simplify a complicated story. Rutherford directed the Cavendish Lab footsteps of J.J. Thomson. Rutherford died in 1937, having led a first wave of discovery of the atom. -
The Development of Military Nuclear Strategy And
The Development of Military Nuclear Strategy and Anglo-American Relations, 1939 – 1958 Submitted by: Geoffrey Charles Mallett Skinner to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, July 2018 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ……………………………………………………………………………… 1 Abstract There was no special governmental partnership between Britain and America during the Second World War in atomic affairs. A recalibration is required that updates and amends the existing historiography in this respect. The wartime atomic relations of those countries were cooperative at the level of science and resources, but rarely that of the state. As soon as it became apparent that fission weaponry would be the main basis of future military power, America decided to gain exclusive control over the weapon. Britain could not replicate American resources and no assistance was offered to it by its conventional ally. America then created its own, closed, nuclear system and well before the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, the event which is typically seen by historians as the explanation of the fracturing of wartime atomic relations. Immediately after 1945 there was insufficient systemic force to create change in the consistent American policy of atomic monopoly. As fusion bombs introduced a new magnitude of risk, and as the nuclear world expanded and deepened, the systemic pressures grew. -
Proceedings of the Sir Mark Oliphant International Frontiers of Science and Technology Australian Geothermal Energy Conference Record 2008/18 Gurgenci, H
GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA Sir Mark Oliphant Conferences – International Frontiers of Science and Technology Proceedings of the Sir Mark Oliphant International Frontiers of Science and Technology Australian Geothermal Energy Conference Record 2008/18 Gurgenci, H. and Budd, A.R. APPLYING GEOSCIENCE TO AUSTRALIA’S MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGES Proceedings of the Sir Mark Oliphant International Frontiers of Science and Technology Australian Geothermal Energy Conference GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA RECORD 2008/18 Edited by Hal Gurgenci 1 and Anthony Budd 2 1 Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre, The University of Queensland, St Lucia 4072 2 Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT 2601 Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism Minister for Resources and Energy: The Hon. Martin Ferguson, AM MP Secretary: Dr Peter Boxall Geoscience Australia Chief Executive Officer: Dr Neil Williams PSM © Commonwealth of Australia, 2008 This work is copyright. Apart from any fair dealings for the purpose of study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Copyright is the responsibility of the Chief Executive Officer, Geoscience Australia. Requests and enquiries should be directed to the Chief Executive Officer, Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378 Canberra ACT 2601. Geoscience Australia has tried to make the information in this product as accurate as possible. However, it does not guarantee that the information is totally accurate or complete. Therefore, you should not solely rely on this information when making a commercial decision. ISSN 1448-2177 ISBN 978 1 921498 19 0 GeoCat # 67255 Recommended bibliographic reference: Gurgenci, H. and Budd, A.R. (editors), 2008. -
A Selected Bibliography of Publications By, and About, J
A Selected Bibliography of Publications by, and about, J. Robert Oppenheimer Nelson H. F. Beebe University of Utah Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB 155 S 1400 E RM 233 Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090 USA Tel: +1 801 581 5254 FAX: +1 801 581 4148 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] (Internet) WWW URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ 17 March 2021 Version 1.47 Title word cross-reference $1 [Duf46]. $12.95 [Edg91]. $13.50 [Tho03]. $14.00 [Hug07]. $15.95 [Hen81]. $16.00 [RS06]. $16.95 [RS06]. $17.50 [Hen81]. $2.50 [Opp28g]. $20.00 [Hen81, Jor80]. $24.95 [Fra01]. $25.00 [Ger06]. $26.95 [Wol05]. $27.95 [Ger06]. $29.95 [Goo09]. $30.00 [Kev03, Kle07]. $32.50 [Edg91]. $35 [Wol05]. $35.00 [Bed06]. $37.50 [Hug09, Pol07, Dys13]. $39.50 [Edg91]. $39.95 [Bad95]. $8.95 [Edg91]. α [Opp27a, Rut27]. γ [LO34]. -particles [Opp27a]. -rays [Rut27]. -Teilchen [Opp27a]. 0-226-79845-3 [Guy07, Hug09]. 0-8014-8661-0 [Tho03]. 0-8047-1713-3 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1714-1 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1721-4 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1722-2 [Edg91]. 0-9672617-3-2 [Bro06, Hug07]. 1 [Opp57f]. 109 [Con05, Mur05, Nas07, Sap05a, Wol05, Kru07]. 112 [FW07]. 1 2 14.99/$25.00 [Ber04a]. 16 [GHK+96]. 1890-1960 [McG02]. 1911 [Meh75]. 1945 [GHK+96, Gow81, Haw61, Bad95, Gol95a, Hew66, She82, HBP94]. 1945-47 [Hew66]. 1950 [Ano50]. 1954 [Ano01b, GM54, SZC54]. 1960s [Sch08a]. 1963 [Kuh63]. 1967 [Bet67a, Bet97, Pun67, RB67]. 1976 [Sag79a, Sag79b]. 1981 [Ano81]. 20 [Goe88]. 2005 [Dre07]. 20th [Opp65a, Anoxx, Kai02]. -
A Secrecy Primer
A Secrecy Primer As more countries acquire the scientific knowledge to build nuclear weapons, the U.S. response should not be heightened secrecy but a renewed commitment to strengthening political safeguards. David Hafemeister Secrecy is in the air. Last July, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, still recovering from the Wen Ho Lee “Chinese espionage” controversy, shut down classified work for 10 weeks after two computer disks containing sensitive material were reported missing. Some 12,000 personnel remained idle during a lengthy investigation that in the end revealed the two computer disks hadn't even existed–bar codes for the disks had been created and inventoried, but never used. Alternatively, anyone with a credit card and a casual interest in the secrets of bomb-making could have visited Amazon.com and purchased for $34.95 (plus shipping) The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb. The curious history of the Los Alamos Primer–a history in which I played a very small part–in itself offers a worthwhile primer on the evolving nature of secrecy in the nuclear age and on the need to develop political instruments to cope with the inevitable dissemination of knowledge and technology. In April 1943, Robert Serber, a protegé of J. Robert Oppenheimer, gave a series of five lectures on atomic physics to the new hires at Los Alamos. “The object,” declared the young physicist, “is to produce a practical military weapon in the form of a bomb in which the energy is released by a fast neutrino chain reaction in one or more of the materials known to show nuclear fission.” Topics ranged from fast neutron reactions to the probability of predetonation. -
Historic Barriers to Anglo-American Nuclear Cooperation
3 HISTORIC BARRIERS TO ANGLO- AMERICAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION ANDREW BROWN Despite being the closest of allies, with shared values and language, at- tempts by the United Kingdom and the United States to reach accords on nuclear matters generated distrust and resentment but no durable arrangements until the Mutual Defense Agreement of 1958. There were times when the perceived national interests of the two countries were unsynchronized or at odds; periods when political leaders did not see eye to eye or made secret agreements that remained just that; and when espionage, propaganda, and public opinion caused addi- tional tensions. STATUS IMBALANCE The Magna Carta of the nuclear age is the two-part Frisch-Peierls mem- orandum. It was produced by two European émigrés, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, at Birmingham University in the spring of 1940. Un- like Einstein’s famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with its vague warning that a powerful new bomb might be constructed from uranium, the Frisch-Peierls memorandum set out detailed technical arguments leading to the conclusion that “a moderate amount of U-235 [highly enriched uranium] would indeed constitute an extremely effi- cient explosive.” Like Einstein, Frisch and Peierls were worried that the Germans might already be working toward an atomic bomb against which there would be no defense. By suggesting “a counter-threat with a similar bomb,” they first enunciated the concept of mutual deterrence and recommended “start[ing] production as soon as possible, even if 36 Historic Barriers to Anglo-American Nuclear Cooperation 37 it is not intended to use the bomb as a means of attack.”1 Professor Mark Oliphant from Birmingham convinced the UK authorities that “the whole thing must be taken rather seriously,”2 and a small group of senior scientists came together as the Maud Committee. -
Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics
Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics Series Editors Neil Ashby William Brantley Michael Fowler Michael Inglis Elena Sassi Helmy S. Sherif Heinz Klose For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/8917 Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics (ULNP) publishes authoritative texts covering topics throughout pure and applied physics. Each title in the series is suitable as a basis for undergraduate instruction, typically containing practice problems, worked examples, chapter summaries, and suggestions for further reading. ULNP titles must provide at least one of the following: • An exceptionally clear and concise treatment of a standard undergraduate subject. • A solid undergraduate-level introduction to a graduate, advanced, or non-stan- dard subject. • A novel perspective or an unusual approach to teaching a subject. ULNP especially encourages new, original, and idiosyncratic approaches to physics teaching at the undergraduate level. The purpose of ULNP is to provide intriguing, absorbing books that will continue to be the reader’s preferred reference throughout their academic career. Series Editors Neil Ashby Professor, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA William Brantley Professor, Furman University, Greenville, SC, USA Michael Fowler Professor, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA Michael Inglis Professor, SUNY Suffolk County Community College, Selden, NY, USA Elena Sassi Professor, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy Helmy Sherif Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada Bruce Cameron Reed The History and Science of the Manhattan Project 123 Bruce Cameron Reed Department of Physics Alma College Alma, MI USA ISSN 2192-4791 ISSN 2192-4805 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-642-40296-8 ISBN 978-3-642-40297-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-40297-5 Springer Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2013946925 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 This work is subject to copyright. -
The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952
Igniting The Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 by Anne Fitzpatrick Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES Approved: Joseph C. Pitt, Chair Richard M. Burian Burton I. Kaufman Albert E. Moyer Richard Hirsh June 23, 1998 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Nuclear Weapons, Computing, Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 by Anne Fitzpatrick Committee Chairman: Joseph C. Pitt Science and Technology Studies (ABSTRACT) The American system of nuclear weapons research and development was conceived and developed not as a result of technological determinism, but by a number of individual architects who promoted the growth of this large technologically-based complex. While some of the technological artifacts of this system, such as the fission weapons used in World War II, have been the subject of many historical studies, their technical successors -- fusion (or hydrogen) devices -- are representative of the largely unstudied highly secret realms of nuclear weapons science and engineering. In the postwar period a small number of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory’s staff and affiliates were responsible for theoretical work on fusion weapons, yet the program was subject to both the provisions and constraints of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, of which Los Alamos was a part. The Commission leadership’s struggle to establish a mission for its network of laboratories, least of all to keep them operating, affected Los Alamos’s leaders’ decisions as to the course of weapons design and development projects. -
Revisiting the Los Alamos Primer B
Revisiting The Los Alamos Primer B. Cameron Reed Citation: Physics Today 70, 9, 42 (2017); View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3692 View Table of Contents: http://physicstoday.scitation.org/toc/pto/70/9 Published by the American Institute of Physics Articles you may be interested in In the digital age, physics students and professors prefer paper textbooks Physics Today 70, 30 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3657 Clippers, yachts, and the false promise of the wave line Physics Today 70, 52 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3627 Interplanetary sand traps Physics Today 70, 78 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3672 The new Moon Physics Today 70, 38 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3593 Mobilizing US physics in World War I Physics Today 70, 44 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3660 A thermodynamic theory of granular material endures Physics Today 70, 20 (2017); 10.1063/PT.3.3682 Cameron Reed is a professor of physics at Alma College in Michigan. REVISITING B. Cameron Reed A concise packet of lecture notes offers a window into one of the turning points of 20th-century history. n April 1943, scientists began gathering at a top-secret new laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to design and build the world’s first atomic bombs. Most of them had been involved in nuclear fission research, but due to secrecy restrictions, few had any sense of the immensity of the project they were about to undertake. Their goal was to leverage the phenomenon of nuclear fission, discovered only four years earlier, to produce nuclear weapons in time to affect World War II. -
Character List
Character List - Bomb Use this chart to help you keep track of the hundreds of names of physicists, freedom fighters, government officials, and others involved in the making of the atomic bomb. Scientists Political/Military Leaders Spies Robert Oppenheimer - Winston Churchill -- Prime Klaus Fuchs - physicist in designed atomic bomb. He was Minister of England Manhattan Project who gave accused of spying. secrets to Russia Franklin D. Roosevelt -- Albert Einstein - convinced President of the United States Harry Gold - spy and Courier U.S. government that they for Russia KGB. Narrator of the needed to research fission. Harry Truman -- President of story the United States Enrico Fermi - created first Ruth Werner - Russian spy chain reaction Joseph Stalin -- dictator of the Tell Hall -- physicist in Soviet Union Igor Korchatov -- Russian Manhattan Project who gave physicist in charge of designing Adolf Hitler -- dictator of secrets to Russia bomb Germany Haakon Chevalier - friend who Werner Reisenberg -- Leslie Groves -- Military approached Oppenheimer about German physicist in charge of leader of the Manhattan Project spying for Russia. He was designing bomb watched by the FBI, but he was not charged. Otto Hahn -- German physicist who discovered fission Other scientists involved in the Manhattan Project: Aage Niels Bohr George Kistiakowsky Joseph W. Kennedy Richard Feynman Arthur C. Wahl Frank Oppenheimer Joseph Rotblat Robert Bacher Arthur H. Compton Hans Bethe Karl T. Compton Robert Serber Charles Critchfield Harold Agnew Kenneth Bainbridge Robert Wilson Charles Thomas Harold Urey Leo James Rainwater Rudolf Pelerls Crawford Greenewalt Harold DeWolf Smyth Leo Szilard Samuel K. Allison Cyril S. Smith Herbert L. Anderson Luis Alvarez Samuel Goudsmit Edward Norris Isidor I. -
Prints Or a Set of Complete Equations Available for Building New Weapons
Also in this Issue Do Weapons Designers Have Good Judgment? Laboratory Directors Speak Out Remembering Harold Agnew National Security Science • February 2014 i Challenges Facing Stockpile Stewardship in the Second Nuclear Age WELCOME to this issue of National Security Science. is issue is in celebration of the rst Los Alamos Primer lectures, which took place 71 years ago in the spring of 1943. ese lectures were held in conjunction with the start-up of “Project Y,” which was part of the Manhattan Project. Project Y would eventually become Los Alamos National Laboratory. e U.S. entry into the Atomic Age had been slow and cautious. But when the United States entered World War II and faced the carnage of the war, ghting and genocide had already claimed millions of lives. Obtaining the bomb before Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was imperative. e brightest students (their average age was 24) were recruited from the nation’s best colleges and universities. ey were joined by other recruits: some of the world’s preeminent scientists—for example, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, and Stanislaw Ulam—many of them refugees from Nazi Germany. e recruits were told very little other than that their work might bring an end to the war. ey were given one-way train tickets to the tiny town of Lamy, New Mexico, just south of Santa Fe. ere they were met by government agents and spirited away to an undisclosed location in the mountains northwest of Santa Fe. e youthful recruits, soon to become the world’s rst nuclear weapons scientists and engineers, knew little about nuclear energy and nothing at all about making an atomic bomb. -
The Beginning of the Nuclear Age
The Beginning of the Nuclear Age M. SHIFMAN 1 Theoretical Physics Institute, University of Minnesota 1 Introduction A few years ago I delivered a lecture course for pre-med freshmen students. It was a required calculus-based introductory course, with a huge class of nearly 200. The problem was that the majority of students had a limited exposure to physics, and, what was even worse, low interest in this subject. They had an impression that a physics course was a formal requirement and they would never need physics in their future lives. Besides, by the end of the week they were apparently tired. To remedy this problem I decided that each Friday I would break the standard succession of topics, and tell them of something physics-related but { simultaneously { entertaining. Three or four Friday lectures were devoted to why certain Hollywood movies contradict laws of Nature. After looking through fragments we discussed which particular laws were grossly violated and why. I remember that during one Friday lecture I captivated students with TV sci-fi miniseries on a catastrophic earthquake entitled 10.5, and then we talked about real-life earthquakes. Humans have been recording earthquakes for nearly 4,000 years. The deadliest one happened in China in 1556 A.D. On January 23 of that year, a powerful quake killed an estimated 830,000 people. By today's estimate its Richter scale magnitude was about 8.3. The strongest earthquake ever recorded was the 9.5-magnitude Valdivia earthquake in Chile which occurred in 1960. My remark that in passing from 9.5.