Abstract
Two refugees, one German, the other Austrian, show the English the extraordinary destructive power which a pure uranium 235 bomb would have. After a tedious start, the United States devote immense resources, both financial and human, in order to build a uranium or plutonium “atomic” bomb. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are destroyed by nuclear fire.
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Notes
- 1.
See p. 363.
- 2.
This first estimate was based on incomplete data, and later, it was found that a larger mass was required. About 15 kg of uranium 235 are required to make an atomic bomb.
- 3.
Heavy water is water in which both hydrogen atoms are replaced by deuterium atoms (D2O instead of H2O).
- 4.
The National Front for the liberation and the independence of France.
- 5.
See p. 427.
- 6.
So called by Alvin Weinberg, who had participated in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos and had become the director of the laboratory in Oak Ridge [15].
- 7.
National Front for the fight for the liberation and independence of France.
- 8.
National Resistance Council.
- 9.
Atomic Energy Commission.
- 10.
The acronym ZOÉ was coined by Lew Kowarski: “Z” and “É” stand for “zero energy” (zéro énergie in French) and “O” stands for “oxide,” because the reactor used uranium oxide.
- 11.
The autobiography of Anatole Abragam, De la physique avant toute chose? contains an interesting account of theoretical physics in France before the war.
- 12.
Center of Nuclear Studies, a section of the CEA (the French Atomic Energy Commission)
- 13.
See p. 304–308.
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Fernandez, B. (2013). The Upheavals of the Second World War. In: Unravelling the Mystery of the Atomic Nucleus. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4181-6_6
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