Manhattan District History Project Y: the Los Alamos Project
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The Making of an Atomic Bomb
(Image: Courtesy of United States Government, public domain.) INTRODUCTORY ESSAY "DESTROYER OF WORLDS": THE MAKING OF AN ATOMIC BOMB At 5:29 a.m. (MST), the world’s first atomic bomb detonated in the New Mexican desert, releasing a level of destructive power unknown in the existence of humanity. Emitting as much energy as 21,000 tons of TNT and creating a fireball that measured roughly 2,000 feet in diameter, the first successful test of an atomic bomb, known as the Trinity Test, forever changed the history of the world. The road to Trinity may have begun before the start of World War II, but the war brought the creation of atomic weaponry to fruition. The harnessing of atomic energy may have come as a result of World War II, but it also helped bring the conflict to an end. How did humanity come to construct and wield such a devastating weapon? 1 | THE MANHATTAN PROJECT Models of Fat Man and Little Boy on display at the Bradbury Science Museum. (Image: Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory.) WE WAITED UNTIL THE BLAST HAD PASSED, WALKED OUT OF THE SHELTER AND THEN IT WAS ENTIRELY SOLEMN. WE KNEW THE WORLD WOULD NOT BE THE SAME. A FEW PEOPLE LAUGHED, A FEW PEOPLE CRIED. MOST PEOPLE WERE SILENT. J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER EARLY NUCLEAR RESEARCH GERMAN DISCOVERY OF FISSION Achieving the monumental goal of splitting the nucleus The 1930s saw further development in the field. Hungarian- of an atom, known as nuclear fission, came through the German physicist Leo Szilard conceived the possibility of self- development of scientific discoveries that stretched over several sustaining nuclear fission reactions, or a nuclear chain reaction, centuries. -
World War II-Related Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art: Research Resources Relating to World War II World War II-Related Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art During the war years, the National Gallery of Art presented a series of exhibitions explicitly related to the war or presenting works of art for which the museum held custody during the hostilities. Descriptions of each of the exhibitions is available in the list of past exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art. Catalogs, brochures, press releases, news reports, and photographs also may be available for examination in the Gallery Archives for some of the exhibitions. The Great Fire of London, 1940 18 December 1941-28 January 1942 American Artists’ Record of War and Defense 7 February-8 March 1942 French Government Loan 2 March 1942-1945, periodically Soldiers of Production 17 March-15 April 1942 Three Triptychs by Contemporary Artists 8-15 April 1942 Paintings, Posters, Watercolors, and Prints, Showing the Activities of the American Red Cross 2-30 May 1942 Art Exhibition by Men of the Armed Forces 5 July-2 August 1942 War Posters 17 January-18 February 1943 Belgian Government Loan 7 February 1943-January 1946 War Art 20 June-1 August 1943 Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Drawings and Watercolors from French Museums and Private Collections 8 August-5 September 1943 (second showing) Art for Bonds 12 September-10 October 1943 1DWLRQDO*DOOHU\RI$UW:DVKLQJWRQ'&*DOOHU\$UFKLYHV ::,,5HODWHG([KLELWLRQVDW1*$ Marine Watercolors and Drawings 12 September-10 October 1943 Paintings of Naval Aviation by American Artists -
Edward Mills Purcell (1912–1997)
ARTICLE-IN-A-BOX Edward Mills Purcell (1912–1997) Edward Purcell grew up in a small town in the state of Illinois, USA. The telephone equipment which his father worked with professionally was an early inspiration. His first degree was thus in electrical engineering, from Purdue University in 1933. But it was in this period that he realized his true calling – physics. After a year in Germany – almost mandatory then for a young American interested in physics! – he enrolled in Harvard for a physics degree. His thesis quickly led to working on the Harvard cyclotron, building a feedback system to keep the radio frequency tuned to the right value for maximum acceleration. The story of how the Manhattan project brought together many of the best physicists to build the atom bomb has been told many times. Not so well-known but equally fascinating is the story of radar, first in Britain and then in the US. The MIT radiation laboratory was charged with developing better and better radar for use against enemy aircraft, which meant going to shorter and shorter wavelengths and detecting progressively weaker signals. This seems to have been a crucial formative period in Purcell’s life. His coauthors on the magnetic resonance paper, Torrey and Pound, were both from this lab. I I Rabi, the physicist who won the 1944 Nobel Prize for measuring nuclear magnetic moments by resonance methods in molecular beams, was the head of the lab and a major influence on Purcell. Interestingly, Felix Bloch (see article on p.956 in this issue) was at the nearby Radio Research lab but it appears that the two did not interact much. -
The Secret History of Australia's Nuclear Ambitions
Jim Walsh SURPRISE DOWN UNDER: THE SECRET HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS by Jim Walsh Jim Walsh is a visiting scholar at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science program at MIT, where he is completing a dissertation analyzing comparative nuclear decisionmaking in Australia, the Middle East, and Europe. ustralia is widely considered tactical nuclear weapons. In 1961, of state behavior and the kinds of Ato be a world leader in ef- Australia proposed a secret agree- policies that are most likely to retard forts to halt and reverse the ment for the transfer of British the spread of nuclear weapons? 1 spread of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons, and, throughout This article attempts to answer Australian government created the the 1960s, Australia took actions in- some of these questions by examin- Canberra Commission, which called tended to keep its nuclear options ing two phases in Australian nuclear for the progressive abolition of open. It was not until 1973, when history: 1) the attempted procure- nuclear weapons. It led the fight at Australia ratified the NPT, that the ment phase (1956-1963); and 2) the the U.N. General Assembly to save country finally renounced the acqui- indigenous capability phase (1964- the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty sition of nuclear weapons. 1972). The historical reconstruction (CTBT), and the year before, played Over the course of four decades, of these events is made possible, in a major role in efforts to extend the Australia has gone from a country part, by newly released materials Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of that once sought nuclear weapons to from the Australian National Archive Nuclear Weapons (NPT) indefi- one that now supports their abolition. -
Footnotes for ATOMIC ADVENTURES
Footnotes for ATOMIC ADVENTURES Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder - A Journey into the Wild World of Nuclear Science By James Mahaffey While writing ATOMIC ADVENTURES, I tried to be careful not to venture off into subplots, however interesting they seemed to me, and keep the story flowing and progressing at the right tempo. Some subjects were too fascinating to leave alone, and there were bits of further information that I just could not abandon. The result is many footnotes at the bottom of pages, available to the reader to absorb at his or her discretion. To get the full load of information from this book, one needs to read the footnotes. Some may seem trivia, but some are clarifying and instructive. This scheme works adequately for a printed book, but not so well with an otherwise expertly read audio version. Some footnotes are short enough to be inserted into the audio stream, but some are a rambling half page of dense information. I was very pleased when Blackstone Audio agreed wholeheartedly that we needed to include all of my footnotes in this version of ATOMIC ADVENTURES, and we came up with this added feature: All 231 footnotes in this included text, plus all the photos and explanatory diagrams that were included in the text. I hope you enjoy reading some footnotes while listening to Keith Sellon-Wright tell the stories in ATOMIC ADVENTURES. James Mahaffey April 2017 2 Author’s Note Stories Told at Night around the Glow of the Reactor Always striving to beat the Atlanta Theater over on Edgewood Avenue, the Forsyth Theater was pleased to snag a one-week engagement of the world famous Harry Houdini, extraordinary magician and escape artist, starting April 19, 1915.1 It was issued an operating license, no. -
Indictment Presented to the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg, 18 October 1945)
Indictment presented to the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg, 18 October 1945) Caption: On 18 October 1945, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg accuses 24 German political, military and economic leaders of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Source: Indictment presented to the International Military Tribunal sitting at Berlin on 18th October 1945. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, November 1945. 50 p. (Cmd. 6696). p. 2-50. Copyright: Crown copyright is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the Queen's Printer for Scotland URL: http://www.cvce.eu/obj/indictment_presented_to_the_international_military_tribunal_nuremberg_18_october_1945-en- 6b56300d-27a5-4550-8b07-f71e303ba2b1.html Last updated: 03/07/2015 1 / 46 03/07/2015 Indictment presented to the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg, 18 October 1945) INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, AND THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS — AGAINST — HERMANN WILHELM GÖRING, RUDOLF HESS, JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP, ROBERT LEY, WILHELM KEITEL, ERNST KALTEN BRUNNER, ALFRED ROSENBERG, HANS FRANK, WILHELM FRICK, JULIUS STREICHER, WALTER FUNK, HJALMAR SCHACHT, GUSTAV KRUPP VON BOHLEN UND HALBACH, KARL DÖNITZ, ERICH RAEDER, BALDUR VON SCHIRACH, FRITZ SAUCKEL, ALFRED JODL, MARTIN BORMANN, FRANZ VON PAPEN, ARTUR SEYSS INQUART, ALBERT SPEER, CONSTANTIN VON NEURATH, AND HANS FRITZSCHE, -
I. I. Rabi Papers [Finding Aid]. Library of Congress. [PDF Rendered Tue Apr
I. I. Rabi Papers A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 1992 Revised 2010 March Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact Additional search options available at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms998009 LC Online Catalog record: http://lccn.loc.gov/mm89076467 Prepared by Joseph Sullivan with the assistance of Kathleen A. Kelly and John R. Monagle Collection Summary Title: I. I. Rabi Papers Span Dates: 1899-1989 Bulk Dates: (bulk 1945-1968) ID No.: MSS76467 Creator: Rabi, I. I. (Isador Isaac), 1898- Extent: 41,500 items ; 105 cartons plus 1 oversize plus 4 classified ; 42 linear feet Language: Collection material in English Location: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Summary: Physicist and educator. The collection documents Rabi's research in physics, particularly in the fields of radar and nuclear energy, leading to the development of lasers, atomic clocks, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to his 1944 Nobel Prize in physics; his work as a consultant to the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and as an advisor on science policy to the United States government, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during and after World War II; and his studies, research, and professorships in physics chiefly at Columbia University and also at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Selected Search Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein. -
(DMS) W Est Longitude
Table 1. Construction details, location, water levels, and period of record for wells in the northeast portion of the alluvial aquifer at Louisville, Kentucky, as stored in the U.S. Geological Survey Ground-Water Site-Inventory (GWSI) database. [DMS, degrees minutes seconds; ft, feet; bls, below land surface; in., inches; --, not available] Initial water- Number Map Land level Casing of number Site North West surface Depth meas- inside water on identification latitude1 longitude1 elevation2 of well urement diameter Construction Period of level figure 3 number (DMS) (DMS) (ft) (ft bls) (ft bls) (in.) date record records 1 381603085424701 38°16’03” 85°42’47” 429.7 26.1 15.16 1.25 January 1944 January 1944 1 2 381604085430501 38°16’04” 85°43’05” 438.88 102 31 4.00 April 1946 April 1946-October 1996 608 3 381613085421901 38°16’13” 85°42’19” 434.59 86 15 4.00 June 1946 June 1946-May 1992 189 4 381613085422801 38°16’13” 85°42’28” 433.66 60.2 13.16 2.00 1995 March 2001-August 2005 12 5 381614085431201 38°16’14” 85°43’12” 429.11 90.6 6.0 4.00 April 1946 April 1946-November 1950 8 6 381618085425901 38°16’18” 85°42’59” 427.52 27 9.19 1.25 January 1944 January 1944 1 7 381622085423401 38°16’22” 85°42’34” 432.78 102.2 13.77 4.00 May 1946 May 1946 1 8 381630085414901 38°16’30” 85°41’49” 428 94 8.01 4.00 April 1946 April 1948 1 9 381632085424301 38°16’32” 85°42’43” 422.7 89 6.6 4.00 May 1946 May 1946 1 10 381638085415801 38°16’38” 85°41’58” 435.79 104 15.85 4.00 1946 April 1946-August 2005 668 11 381640085422801 38°16’40” 85°42’28” 428 25.1 9.17 1.25 -
2Nd INFANTRY REGIMENT
2nd INFANTRY REGIMENT 1110 pages (approximate) Boxes 1243-1244 The 2nd Infantry Regiment was a component part of the 5th Infantry Division. This Division was activated in 1939 but did not enter combat until it landed on Utah Beach, Normandy, three days after D-Day. For the remainder of the war in Europe the Division participated in numerous operations and engagements of the Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe campaigns. The records of the 2nd Infantry Regiment consist mostly of after action reports and journals which provide detailed accounts of the operations of the Regiment from July 1944 to May 1945. The records also contain correspondence on the early history of the Regiment prior to World War II and to its training activities in the United States prior to entering combat. Of particular importance is a file on the work of the Regiment while serving on occupation duty in Iceland in 1942. CONTAINER LIST Box No. Folder Title 1243 2nd Infantry Regiment Unit Histories January 1943-June 1944 2nd Infantry Regiment Unit Histories, July-October 1944 2nd Infantry Regiment Histories, July 1944- December 1945 2nd Infantry Regiment After Action Reports, July-September 1944 2nd Infantry Regiment After Action Reports, October-December 1944 2nd Infantry Regiment After Action Reports, January-May 1945 2nd Infantry Regiment Casualty List, 1944-1945 2nd Infantry Regiment Unit Journal, 1945 2nd Infantry Regiment Narrative History, October 1944-May 1945 2nd Infantry Regiment History Correspondence, 1934-1936 2nd Infantry -
Building the Future
Building the Future for the Past BY KATE SHIRLEY IN AMERICA had required skilled right of way agents and engineers. As the need to support the war grew, the upkeep and maintenance The second decade of our of these projects was neglected. Even the Public Works young organization’s existence Administration was deemed irrelevant at that time, and it was did not begin particularly abolished in 1941. illustriously, mainly due to world events of the time. The only exceptions to this general desertion of domestic The 1940’s opened with the infrastructure projects and improvements were those directly United States standing on the precipice of war, a war which would related to the war effort. These included the roads that served dominate the fi rst half of the decade, and one that would have a military installations and industrial production which suddenly grave effect on public works projects of the time. had to be built or expanded. Major bridges were strengthened in 1940s order to accommodate larger loads (including tanks and other The New Deal projects, which had been initiated in response to materials), and military training and port facilities were built, the Great Depression of the 1930s and had hoped to stimulate along with the sanitation facilities they required. Furthermore, the economy by encouraging domestic public works projects, with the rationing of gasoline and tires, and automobile were now largely abandoned, as President Roosevelt recognized manufacturing stalled, the use of public transit was on the rise. the need to divert all available government funds toward war production and spending. -
Weapon Physics Division
-!! Chapter XV WEAPON PHYSICS DIVISION Introduction 15.1 At the time of its organization in August 1944, the Weapon Physics or G Division (G for gadget, code for weapon) was given a directive to carry out experiments on the critical assembly of active materials, to de- vise methods for the study of the implosion, and to exploit these methods to gain information about the implosion. In April 1945, the G Division directive was extended to fnclude the responsibility for the design and procurement of the hnplosion tamper, as well as the active core. In addition to its primary work with critical assemblies and implosion studies, G Division undertook the design and testing of an implosion initiator and of electric detonators for the high explosive. The Electronics Group was transferred from the Experi- mental Physics Division to G Division, and the Photographic Section of the Ordnance Division became G Divisionts Photographic Group. 15.2 The initial organization of the division, unchanged during the year which this account covers, was as follows: G-1 Critical Assemblies O. R. Frisch G-2 The X-Ray Method L. W. Parratt G-3 The Magnetic Method E. W. McMillan G-4 Electronics W. A. Higginbotham G-5 The Betatron Method S. H. Neddermeyer G-6 The RaLa Method B. ROSSi G-7 Electric Detonators L. W. Alvarez G-8 The Electric Method D. K. Froman G-9 (Absorbed in Group G-1) G-10 Initiator Group C. L. Critchfield G-n Optics J. E. Mack - 228 - 15.3 For the work of G Division a large new laboratory building was constructed, Gamma Building. -
An Improbable Venture
AN IMPROBABLE VENTURE A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO NANCY SCOTT ANDERSON THE UCSD PRESS LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA © 1993 by The Regents of the University of California and Nancy Scott Anderson All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Anderson, Nancy Scott. An improbable venture: a history of the University of California, San Diego/ Nancy Scott Anderson 302 p. (not including index) Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-302) and index 1. University of California, San Diego—History. 2. Universities and colleges—California—San Diego. I. University of California, San Diego LD781.S2A65 1993 93-61345 Text typeset in 10/14 pt. Goudy by Prepress Services, University of California, San Diego. Printed and bound by Graphics and Reproduction Services, University of California, San Diego. Cover designed by the Publications Office of University Communications, University of California, San Diego. CONTENTS Foreword.................................................................................................................i Preface.........................................................................................................................v Introduction: The Model and Its Mechanism ............................................................... 1 Chapter One: Ocean Origins ...................................................................................... 15 Chapter Two: A Cathedral on a Bluff ......................................................................... 37 Chapter Three: