Dieses Buch Entstand Aus Den Recherchen Für Die BBC

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Dieses Buch Entstand Aus Den Recherchen Für Die BBC Dank Dieses Buch entstand aus den Recherchen für die BBC-Fernsehserie Oppenheimer, in deren Verlauf ich annähernd fünfzig ehemalige Kollegen und Freunde Oppenheimers interviewt habe. Alle halfen mir und stellten mir geduldig ihre Zeit zur Verfügung. Zu besonderem Dank bin ich verpflichtet: Kenneth Bainbridge, Priscilla Duffield, Lloyd Garrison, Harold Green, George Kistiakowsky, Kenneth D. Nichols, Frank und Jackie Oppenheimer, Isidor Rabi, Roger Robb, Edward Teller, joseph Volpe und Robert Wilson. Zu Beginn meiner Arbeit hat mich Barbara Mulkin vom PublicRelations Büro in Los Alamos besonders großzügig unterstützt. Ich schulde ihr und ih­ ren Kollegen besonderen Dank, speziell für die Illustrationen. Gleichfalls bin ich JamesTuck, Robert Serberund Ulla Frisch verpflichtet, die mir Photographien aus ihrem Privatbesitz zur Verfügung stellten. Boris Pash erteilte mir die Genehmigung zur Reproduktion von Abbildungen aus seinem Buch The Alsos Mission (Die Alsos Mission). Mein Dank geht auch an W. G. Marley und John Charap, die mich in technischen Aspekten des Manu­ skriptes gut beraten haben. Aufgrund der <Freedom of Information Act> (Gesetz zur Sicherstellung der Informationsfreiheit) hatten wir Zugang zu den FBI-Akten über]. Robert Oppenheimer. Ich schulde Caroline Davidson großen Dank für ihre sachkun­ dige Hilfe bei der Sichtung und Auswertung dieser umfangreichen Materia­ lien. Die Photographien und Illustrationen hat Katharine Everett besorgt und in den Text integriert. Für diesen unschätzbaren Beitrag zu diesem Buch stehe ich tief in ihrer Schuld. Die Produktion der Fernsehserie und das Schreiben des Buches liefen über weite Strecken parallel, und ich habe dabei außerordentlich viel vom Dialog mit dem Produktionsteam profitiert. Peter Prince möchte ich beson­ ders erwähnen. Er hat das Drehbuch der Serie geschrieben, und mit ihm habe ich das meiste der gemeinsamen Arbeit recherchiert und diskutiert. Nicht zuletzt möchte ich meinen Dank auch an Rena Butterwiek und Pa­ mela King abstatten. Beide haben mir bei der Erstellung der verschiedenen Manuskriptfassungen geholfen. Victoria Huxley und Charles Elton von BBC­ Publications schließlich haben das Manuskript editoriell betreut und in ihrer sympathischen und professionellen Art die Herausgabe des Buches besorgt. 297 Literatur Blumberg, Stanley A., Energy and Conflict: The Life and Times ofEdward Teller, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1976. Brode, Bernice, Tales ofLos Alamos, published in the bi-weekly LASL Community News, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 2 June- 22 September 1960. Brown, J ohn Mason, Through these Men, Hamish Hamilton, 19 56. Chevalier, Haakon, The Story ofa Friendship, Andre Deutsch, 1966. Compton, Arthur Holly, Atomic Quest, Oxford University Press, 19 56. Davis, Nuel Pharr, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, Sirnon and Schuster, 1968; Jonathan Cape, 1969. Groueff, Stephane, Manhatfan Project, Collins, 1967. Hewlett, Richard G. and Anders an, Oscar Jr., The New World, a History of the Atomic Energy Commission, Vols I & II 1939-1946, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962. lrving, David, The Virus House. Germany's Atomic Research and Allied Counter-measures, William Kimber, 1967. Jette, Eleanor, Inside Box 1663, Los Alamos N.M., Los Alamos Historical Society, 1967. Kimball Smith, Alice and Weiner, Charles (Ed.), Robert Oppenheimer, Letters and Recollections, Harvard University Press, 1980. Kunetka, James W., City of Fire. Los Alamos and the Birth of the Atomic Age 1943-1945, Prentice Hall Inc, 1978. Lamont, Lansing, Day ofTrinity, Atheneum, 1965. Lifton, Robert Jay, Death in Life. The Survivors ofHiroshima, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967. Michelmore, Peter, The Swift Years, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1969. Oppenheimer, J. Robert, Science and the Common Understanding, BBC Reith Lecture, 1953, Oxford University Press, 1954. Sherwin, Martin J., A World Destroyed. The Atomic Bomb and the Grand Alliance, Vintage Books Random Hause, 19 77. Stern, Phillip M. (in collaboration with Harold P. Green), The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial, Harper & Row, 1969. US Atomic Energy Commission, In the Matter ofj. Robert Oppenheimer, Transcript of Hearing before Personnel Security Board and Texts of Principal Document and Letters, MIT Press, 1971. Wilson, Jane (Ed.), All in Our Time, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1975. 298 Ergänzend zu den Literaturangaben der Originalausgabe des Buches finden sich nachfolgend einige Hinweise auf deutschsprachige Literatur zum Thema. Baruch, Bernard M.: Gute 88Jahre, München 1958. Born, Max: Mein Leben, München 19 7 5. Clark, Ronald W.: Albert Einstein, Esslingen 1974. Cornpton, Arthur H.: Die Atombombe und ich, Frankfurt 19 58. Davis, N. P.: Die Bombe war ihr Schicksal, Freiburg 1971. Diebner, K., Bagge, E., Jay, K.: Von der Uranspaltung bis Calder Hall, Harnburg 1967. Dyson, Freernan: Innenansichten. Erinnerungen in die Zukunft, Basel 19 81. Frisch, Otto R.: Woran ich mich erinnere. Physik und Physiker meiner Zeit, Stuttgart 1981. Gerlach, Walther: Otto Hahn, ein Forscherleben unserer Zeit, München1970. Groves, Leslie R.:]etzt darf ich sprechen, Köln 1965. Hahn, Otto: Mein Leben, München 1968. Hahn, Otto: Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse, Düsseldorf 1975. Herbig, Jost, Kettenreaktion. Das Drama der Atomphysiker, München 1979. Herneck, Friedrich: Bahnbrecher des Atomzeitalters, Berlin 197 4. lrving, David: Der Traum von der deutschen Atombombe, Gütersloh 1967. Jungk, Robert: Heller als tausend Sonnen, Frankfurt 1968, 5. Aufl. Kipphardt, Heinar: In der Sache]. Robert Oppenheimer, Frankfurt a. M. 1972. Laurence, Williarn L.: Dämmerung über Punkt Null, München 1949. Laurence, Williarn L.: Wasserstoffbomben, Frankfurt 19 51. Leithäuser, J oachirn: Werner Heisenberg, Berlin 19 57. Ludwig, Karl-Heinz: Technik und Ingenieure im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf 1974. Moorehead, Alan: Verratenes Atomgeheimnis, Braunschweig 1953. Oppenheirner, Julius Robert: Wissenschaft und allgemeines Denken, Harnburg 1958. Oppenheirner, Julius Robert: Atomkraft und menschliche Freiheit, Harnburg 1967. Russell, Bertrand: Autobiographie III (1944-1967), Frankfurt 1974. Shepley,]. R.; Blair, C.: Die Wasserstoffbombe, Stuttgart 1955. Srnyth, Henry de Wolf: Atomenergie und ihre Verwertung im Kriege, Basel 1947. Speer, Albert: Erinnerungen, Berlin 1969. 299 Bildquellen Abkürzungen AlP: American Institute ofPhysics AP: Associated Press Photo BL: Baneraft Library, University ofCalifornia LASL: Los Alamos Scientific Labaratory LBL: Lawrence Berkeley Labaratory OMC: Oppenheimer Memorial Committee UPI: United Press International Photo S. 2 T. W. Harvey; S. 6 LASL; S. 10: UPI; S. 11 oben: OMC, unten; S. 12: OMC; S. 13: OMC; S. 15: Courtesy ofHarvard University Archives; S. 16: Cavendish Laboratory; S. 19: Dr. Aage Bohr; S. 20 oben: Ramsey and Muspratt, unten: AlP Niels Bohr LibraryjMeggers Collection; S. 23: Peter Goodchild; S. 24: Photopress Zürich; S. 25: BL; S. 26: Hulton Picture Library; S. 27: Mrs. Molly Lawrence; S. 28: Dr. Rossi Lomanitz (links) unbe­ kannt (rechts); S. 29: Dr. Robert Serber; S. 30: LBL; S. 31: BL; S. 32 BL; S. 34: Dr. Robert Serber; S. 35: Dr. Robert Serber; S. 38: OMC; S. 39: UPI; S. 41: UPI; S. 45: Gertrud Weiss-Szilard; S. 46: LBL; S. 47 oben: AlP Niels Bohr Library/Moffett Studios, unten: BL; S. 50: AlP Niels Bohr Library; S. 51 oben: Ullstein Bilderdienst, unten: Mrs. Ulla Frisch; S. 52 oben: BL, unten: LASL; S. 53 oben: Dr. Robert Serber, unten: Illustrated London News' Pic­ ture Library; S. 54 oben: LASL, unten: Mrs. Ulla Frisch; S. 55: Mrs. Ulla Frisch; S. 58: USArmy Photograph 3741; S. 59: AP; S. 60: Smithsonian Insti­ tution; S. 61: AlP Niels Bohr LibraryjColumbia University; S. 62: Argonne National Laboratory; S. 65: LBL; S. 70: LASL; S. 71: LASL; S. 74: Dr. Robert Serber; S. 75 oben: LASL, unten: LASL; S. 76: LASL; S. 77: LASL; S. 78: Nick Metropolis LASL; S. 79: Peter Goodchild; S. 81: LASL; S. 82: Dr. James Tuck; S. 86: LASL; S. 87 oben: AIPNiels Bohr LibraryjGoudsmit Collection, unten: LASL; S. 90: Popperfoto; S. 91 oben: John Lansdale, unten: US Army Photograph; S. 93: OMC; S. 101: Oak Ridge National Laboratory; S. 105: AIPNiels Bohr LibraryjUniversityofCalifornia; S. 106: OakRidge National Labaratory (links) LBL (rechts); S. 107: du Pont; S. 109: LASL; S. 110 oben: Popperfoto, unten: Dr. Emilio Segre; S. 111: LASL; S. 112: Colonel Boris Pash; S. 113 oben: Dr. Samuel Goudsmit, unten: Colonel Boris Pash; S. 114 oben: David Irving, unten: Ullstein Bilderdienst; S. 117 oben: Dr. G. Marley, unten: LASL; S. 121: Dr. James Tuck; S. 123: LASL; S. 124: LASL; S. 125: Dr. Robert Serber (links) Dr. James Tuck (rechts); S. 126: LASL; S. 127: Pop­ perfata (links) AP(rechts); S. 128: LBL; S. 129: LASL; S. 131: >Life<; S. 134 oben; LASL, unten: Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge; S. 135: Dr. Kenneth Bain­ bridge; S. 136: LASL; S. 137 oben: UPI, unten: LASL; S. 140: US ArmyPho­ tograph 209189; S. 141: LASL; S. 143: LASL; S. 145: PeterGoodchild (links) AP(rechts); S. 147: LASL; S. 149: unbekannt; S. 151 LASL; S. 152: LASL; S. 300 155: US Army Photograph 260301; S. 157: LASL; S. 158: Mrs. Ulla Frisch; S.159oben:LASL,unten:AP;S.160:LASL;S.161:LASL;S.163:LASL;S. 164: unbekannt; S. 165: Popperfoto; S. 166: LASL; S. 168: LASL; S. 169: Popperfoto; S. 170: Popperfoto; S. 173: Keystone Press; S. 174: Keystone Press; S. 175: Popperfoto; S. 177: Dr. James Tuck (links) Dr. Robert Serber (rechts); S. 178: Dr. Robert Serber; S. 179: UPI; S. 182: AIP(Herausgeber); S. 184: OMC; S. 185: George Skadding >Life< ©Time lnc 1963; S. 186: UPI; S. 187: Popperfoto; S. 189: AP; S. 191: Popperfoto (links) US Department of Energy (rechts); S. 192: LASL; S. 193: Institute for Advanced Study, Prince­ ton (links) UPI (rechts); S. 194: AP; S. 195: >Washington Times Herald<; S. 196: Argonne National Laboratory; S. 197: Alfred Eisenstaedt >Life< © Time lnc 1947; S. 201: AP; S. 202: Popperfoto; S. 203: UPI; S. 205: AP; S. 209 oben: LASL, unten: Popperfoto; S. 210: LASL; S. 213: Popperfoto (links) UPI (rechts); S. 215 oben: AlP Niels Bohr LibraryfMeggers Collection, unten: UPI; S. 219: AP; S. 220 oben: US Air Force, unten: Popperfoto; S. 225: Popperfoto; S. 227: AP; S. 231: Popperfoto; S. 232: Peter Goodchild; S. 236: AP; S. 237: AP; S. 241: UPI; S. 243: UPI; S. 244: Popperfoto; S. 245 oben: US National Archives, unten: Mrs.
Recommended publications
  • Secrets Jeremy Bernstein
    INFERENCE / Vol. 6, No. 1 Secrets Jeremy Bernstein Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the decided to found a rival weapons laboratory. Even if Teller United States had offered me a job, I doubt that I would have accepted.3 by Alex Wellerstein After obtaining my degree, I was offered a job that University of Chicago Press, 528 pp., $35.00. would keep me in Cambridge for at least another year. One year became two and at the end of my second year I was uclear weapons have been shrouded in secrecy accepted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. from the very beginning. After plutonium was It was around this time that the chairman of the physics discovered at the University of California in department at Harvard, Kenneth Bainbridge, came to me NDecember 1940, researchers led by Glenn Seaborg submit- with an offer. Bainbridge had been an important figure at ted a pair of letters to the Physical Review. The details of Los Alamos during the war. Robert Oppenheimer had put their discovery were withheld from publication until after him in charge of the site in New Mexico where the Trinity the war.1 Once the project to make a nuclear weapon got test had taken place.4 Bainbridge told me that the labora- underway, secrecy became a very serious matter indeed. tory was offering summer jobs to young PhDs and asked The story of these efforts and how they evolved after the if I was interested. I was very interested. Los Alamos had war is the subject of Alex Wellerstein’s Restricted Data: an almost mystical significance for me due to its history The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • 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].
    [Show full text]
  • Cold War Requisitions, Scientific Manpower, and the Production of American Physicists After World War II
    DAVID KAISER* Cold War requisitions, scientific manpower, and the production of American physicists after World War II 1. RAYMOND BIRGE’S “MAIN OBJECTIVE” “THE MAIN OBJECTIVE of this department of physics,” Raymond Birge wrote in late May 1955, “is to train Ph.D.’s in physics.” Birge— iconic, somber, a displaced Yankee who traced his New England ancestry nine generations back—had been chair of Berkeley’s physics department for twenty-two years; by the mid-1950s, it was the nation’s largest. At the time he explained his department’s “main objec- tive,” Birge was the retiring president of the American Physical Society (APS). Birge and his colleagues in Berkeley’s physics department had emphasized the importance of its graduate program many times before in annual budget requests to the university administration and in funding reports to private industries; it would be easy to read such remarks as thinly-veiled requests for more funding, since training physics Ph.D.s became expensive after World War II. This time, however, Birge articulated his department’s mission in a letter to a local citizen, far outside of the university bureaucracy, who had no funds to offer and who had requested no such pronouncement. 1 *Program in Science, Technology, and Society, and Department of Physics, Building E51- 185, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139; [email protected]. My thanks to Shane Hamilton for his research assistance, and to Alexis De Greiff, Kenji Ito, John Krige, Elizabeth Paris, and John Rudolph for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The following abbreviations are used: AIP-EMD, American Institute of Physics, Edu- cation and Manpower Division Records, Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD; BAS, Bulletin of the atomic scientists; BDP , University of California, Berkeley, Department of Physics Records, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA; HDP, Harvard University Department of Physics Records, Pusey Library, Cambridge, MA; PDP, Princeton University Department of Physics Records, Seeley G.
    [Show full text]
  • ROBERT SERBER March 14, 1909–June 1, 1997
    NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ROBE R T S E R BE R 1 9 0 9 — 1 9 9 7 A Biographical Memoir by ROBE R T P . Cr E A S E Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Biographical Memoir COPYRIGHT 2008 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WASHINGTON, D.C. AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives ROBERT SERBER March 14, 1909–June 1, 1997 BY ROBE RT P . CREASE OBERT SERBER (elected to the NAS in 1952) was one of Rthe leading theorists during the golden age of U.S. physics. He entered graduate school in 190 before such key discoveries as the neutron, positron, and deuteron and prior to the development of the principal tool of nuclear and high-energy physics, the particle accelerator. He retired from the Columbia University Physics Department (as its chairman) in 1978 after completion of the standard model of elementary particle physics, which comprises almost all known particles and forces in a single package, and which has proven hard to surpass. Shy and unostentatious, Serber did not mind being the detached spectator, and did not care when he was occasionally out of step with the mainstream, whether in politics or phys- ics. Nevertheless, others regularly counted on him for advice: he was an insider among insiders. He seemed to carry the entire field of physics in his head, and his particular strength was a synthetic ability. He could integrate all that was known of an area of physics and articulate it back to others clearly and consistently, explaining the connection of each part to the rest.
    [Show full text]
  • THE MEETING Meridel Rubenstein 1995
    THE MEETING Meridel Rubenstein 1995 Palladium prints, steel, single-channel video Video assistance by Steina Video run time 4:00 minutes Tia Collection The Meeting consists of twenty portraits of people from San Ildefonso Pueblo and Manhattan Project physicists—who met at the home of Edith Warner during the making of the first atomic bomb—and twenty photographs of carefully selected objects of significance to each group. In this grouping are people from San Ildefonso Pueblo and the objects they selected from the collections of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture to represent their culture. 1A ROSE HUGHES 2A TALL-NECKED JAR 3A BLUE CORN 4A SLEIGH BELLS 5A FLORENCE NARANJO Rose Hughes holding a photograph of WITH AVANYU One of the most accomplished and (Museum of Indian Arts and Culture) Married to Louis Naranjo; her father, Tony Peña, who organized (plumed serpent) made by Julian and recognized of the San Ildefonso Sleigh bells are commonly used in granddaughter of Ignacio and Susana the building of Edith Warner’s second Maria Martinez, ca. 1930 (Museum of potters. Like many women from the ceremonial dances to attract rain. Aguilar; daughter of Joe Aguilar, who house. Hughes worked at Edith Indian Arts and Culture) Edith Warner pueblos, she worked as a maid for the Tilano Montoya returned with bells like helped Edith Warner remodel the Warner’s with Florence Naranjo one was shown a pot like this one in 1922 Oppenheimers. these from Europe, where he went on tearoom. Edith called her Florencita. summer. She recalls that Edith once on her first visit to San Ildefonso, in the tour with a group of Pueblo dancers.
    [Show full text]
  • Estrelas, Ci^Encia E a Bomba: Uma Entrevista Com Hans Bethe
    o . Revista Brasileira de Ensino de Fsica, vol. 18, n 3, setembro, 1996 143 Estrelas, Ci^encia e a Bomba: Uma Entrevista com Hans Bethe Renato Ejnisman Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627 USA Trabalho recebido em 12 de julho de 1996 Hans Bethe fala de trechos de sua vida como fsico, sobre a fabricac~ao da b omba at^omica, desarmamento e a situac~ao atual da ci^encia. Abstract Hans Bethe talks ab out pieces of his life as a physicist, ab out the making of the atomic bomb, disarmament and the current status of science. sido convidado p elo editor. Alem disso, a entrevista Hans Bethe faz parte de um grup o restrito de fsicos publicada na Folha foi traduzida, o que a faz menos que caram para a Historia. O curioso, no caso de precisa, e leve, em alguns casos, a ordem das p erguntas Bethe, e que, ap esar de seus 90 anos, completados em invertida p or quest~oes editoriais. julho de 1996, ele ainda faz Historia. Atualmente, ele e Antes de continuar, vale descrever um p ouco como um dos lderes em estudos sobre o mecanismo de explo- foi a entrevista. Eu cheguei na sala de Hans Bethe na s~ao em sup ernovas, tendo comecado a trabalhar nesta Universidade de Cornell em Ithaca (EUA) numa terca- area cerca de vinte anos atras, numa idade em que a feira a tarde (21/05/96) e quei surpreso em v^e-lo rme maioria dos fsicos se ap osenta.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • Trinity Site July 16, 1945
    Trinity Site July 16, 1945 "The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beauti­ ful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun." Brig. Gen. Thomas Farrell A national historic landmark on White Sands Missile Range -- www.wsmr.army.mil Radiation Basics Radiation comes from the nucJeus of the gamma ray. This is a type of electromag­ individual atoms. Simple atoms like oxygen netic radiation like visible light, radio waves are very stable. Its nucleus has eight protons and X-rays. They travel at the speed of light. and eight neutrons and holds together well. It takes at least an inch of lead or eight The nucJeus of a complex atom like inches of concrete to stop them. uranium is not as stable. Uranium has 92 Finally, neutrons are also emitted by protons and 146 neutrons in its core. These some radioactive substances. Neutrons are unstable atoms tend to break down into very penetrating but are not as common in more stable, simpler forms. When this nature. Neutrons have the capability of happens the atom emits subatomic particles striking the nucleus of another atom and and gamma rays. This is where the word changing a stable atom into an unstable, and "radiation" comes from -- the atom radiates therefore, radioactive one. Neutrons emitted particles and rays. in nuc!ear reactors are contained in the Health physicists are concerned with reactor vessel or shielding and cause the four emissions from the nucleus of these vessel walls to become radioactive.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]
  • LRB · Steven Shapin: Don't Let That Crybaby in Here Again
    LRB · Steven Shapin: Don’t let that crybaby in here again http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n17/print/shap01_.html HOME SUBSCRIBE LOG OUT CONTACTS SEARCH LRB 7 September 2000 Steven Shapin screen layout tell a friend Don’t let that crybaby in here again Steven Shapin In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist by S.S. Schweber Atomic Fragments: A Daughter’s Questions by Mary Palevsky The rhetorical yield from the first atomic explosion was low – only one entry for the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. When the plutonium bomb exploded on the Jornada del Muerto near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945, Robert Oppenheimer, the Scientific Director of Los Alamos, remembered the line from the Bhagavad Gita where Vishnu says: ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ One other remark deserves to be immortalised, which Oppenheimer himself later judged the best thing said at the time. When the blast subsided, the physicist Kenneth Bainbridge, in charge of the test, turned to Oppenheimer and declared: ‘Now we’re all sons of bitches.’ In general, however, the test was a rhetorical dud. After the physicist Samuel Allison had counted off ‘two, one, zero, NOW,’ a general standing by commented: ‘What a wonderful thing that you could count backwards at a time like this!’ Allison recalled saying to himself: ‘Still alive, no atmospheric ignition.’ The chemist George Kistiakowsky rushed up to Oppenheimer to remind him of a bet they’d struck on the outcome: ‘Oppie, you owe me ten dollars.’ General Leslie Groves, the overall Director of the Manhattan Project, immediately appreciated the military significance of what he’d just seen: ‘The bang must certainly have been a pretty big one .
    [Show full text]
  • 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.
    [Show full text]