Talk:Manhattan Project/Archive/0

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Perhaps someone would like to explain how each of the bombs worked, and alittle more detail on as to why the two different isotopes where needed for the two different bombs. Also maybe a lead in as to how the implosion bomb is used to start the explosion in a Hydrogen bomb... if not Ill get to it eventually -- mincus

The two bombs usewd different elements -not different isotopes. Fat man used plutonium while Little boy used uranium. --- rmhermen

Is the following paragraph from the article right?

"The first thing he did was rechristen the project The Manhattan District. The name evolved from the Corps of Engineers practice of naming districts after its headquarters' city (Marshall's headquarters were in New York City). At the same time, Groves was promoted to brigadier general, which gave him the rank thought necessary to deal with the senior scientists in the project. "

I think it should read

"The first thing he did was rechristen the project The Manhattan Project. The name evolved from the Corps of Engineers practice of naming projects after districts in its headquarters' city (Marshall's headquarters were in New York City). At the same time, Groves was promoted to brigadier general, which gave him the rank thought necessary to deal with the senior scientists in the project. "

but I shan't change it because I'm not sure. Heron

"District" is right. The project was correctly known as the "Manhattan Engineering District" but is known popularly today as the Manhattan Project. Jumbo

However, the U.S. already had a policy of massive incendiary attacks against civilian targets in Japan. IMO it's a tad gauche to implicitly compare firebombing (shocking and awful tho it be) with nuclearbombing (the gift that keeps on giving)... or use one as a defense/justification for the other. =p

Disagree -- it's relevant. One of the criticisms made by the opponents of nuking is that the USA was already destroying various cities with incendiary bombing.

It would be worth slipping in here that Oak Ridge (TVA) and Hanford were likely chosen for their abundant and inexpensive hydroelectricity...

Fast neutrons could only be produced in particle accelerators, which were still relatively uncommon instruments in physics departments in 1942.

Is this dry physicist humor? I assume there were no particle accelerators at that point, and to the layman (me), it won't be obvious that it's dry physicist humor.

I believe the statement is straight - not a bad joke. Your assumption that there were no particle accelerators at that time is wrong - they had been around for over 15 years which is a relatively long time in the physics world. Trelvis 00:58, Oct 18, 2003 (UTC)

Things needed that I see right off the bat: to distinguish that Oppenheimer as in charge of the *lab*, NOT the whole project (Groves was in charge of the project). As for its name, Groves' outfit was the Manhattan Engineering District, which was colloquially the Manhattan Project. There are a few other edits along these lines that I'll try to implement when I get the chance.. the description of the bomb mechanisms is not needed here, they are covered in the nuclear weapons design page.

Also, the transition between Roosevelt's Uranium Committee and the Manhattan Project is far larger than emphasized here (or in related texts). I'll try to flesh out that a bit better eventually but saying that the Einstein letter started the Manhattan Project is not completely true. The work on the bomb languished for years in the hands of the National Bureau of Standards until Compton and Vannevar Bush pushed it into their hands (and then Army hands).

Most of the Los Alamos entry can be folded in here so that essay can have more to do with the lab's post-WWII work. --Fastfission 05:18, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I find these two paragraphs confusing. Are they talking about the same letter? If so, which date is correct? Should the order of the two paragraphs be reversed? Lupin 13:57, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was presented with a letter signed by Albert Einstein (transcribed by Leo Szilard) on October 11, 1939, which urged the United States to rapidly develop an atomic bomb program. The president agreed. The Navy awarded Columbia University the first Atomic Energy funding of $6,000, which grew into the Manhattan Project under Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi's work.
Scientists in Germany discovered nuclear fission in late 1938. Refugee scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner believed that the energy released in nuclear fission might be used in bombs by the Germans. They persuaded Albert Einstein, America's most famous physicist, to warn President Franklin Roosevelt of this danger in an August 2, 1939, letter. In response to the warning, Roosevelt ordered increased research in nuclear physics. "
It looks like this is referring to the same letter, the more famous date of August 2 is when the letter is dated - but could it have taken 2 months to deliver? Anyway I merged these two paragraphs, and left the reference to the actual date of the einstein letter - also included a link to the actual letter text for reference. Thanks for pointing that problem out. Trelvis 01:19, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)
As I understand it, the letter was not delivered directly but was mediated through Alexander Sachs, and it did indeed take a few months for him to get an appropriate audience with Roosevelt. This is something which could be looked up (Rhodes?) I imagine.. --Fastfission 21:22, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

links

Is it just me, or is the first half of "Early Ideas on Nuclear Energy" greatly oversaturated with links? --Niffux 10:51, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it could use a combing through to remove links which had already been referenced earlier, and maybe (I shutter at the thought) remove links to things which don't have articles that look like they will be even started anytime soon (like the OSRD). --Fastfission 16:03, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Re: Targets

Does anyone else think that the section up top about the selection of the civilian targets of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is misplaced? The project was to produce bombs, not to select targets; that was the doing of Truman and the USAAF (if I remember correctly). I just don't see how it's relevant to the discussion of (where, when, who, etc.) made the bombs which were later dropped.

Well, Oppenheimer, Groves, Lawrence, Fermi, and Compton, I think, were all consulted on the question of using the weapons (on the basic question of use on "built up" targets as they were euphemistically called, or whether to just demonstrate them). Which is to say: I think it ought to be in the ideal article on the Manhattan Project, but at the moment this article doesn't even get that far through the chronology, so it is very awkward and out of place and ought to be on the page about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not the page about the Manhattan Project, which is struggling as it is to be useful as an article about the development of the first nuclear weapons. That's my take on it, anyway. --Fastfission 21:22, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think we should lose that paragraph completely from this article;it's just not that germane to this topic (which is length enough without bringing this in). Not that I'm saying we should ignore the issue, just that this isn't the right article for it. It more properly belonds in an article about the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, or in an article about the (continuing) arguments over whether they justified/etc. I would cut and paste it into the Talk: page so it's still available, if we eventually want some of it somewhere else. (I would have done but, but I didn't want to make that major a change on my first edits - I didn't know if y'all had come to some compromise over it.) Noel (talk) 15:36, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article says Radar invented at MIT, should be England

i.e. radar was NOT US invention, although MIT may have indeed produced microwave devices. I don't have a reference handy; need confirmation. 67.113.2.193 07:34, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

History of radar shows that the history of RADAR is not very clear-cut: it's "discovery" was spread out over many decades as the principles of electromagnetics were developed. Additionally, depending on which sort of RADAR you're talking about, it was developed at different times and in different places. Read the article a bit, and clear up the Manhattan Project page if you like so that there's no blanket statement that the US developed it, but it's not clear-cut that it was invented totally in the UK either. --ABQCat 08:14, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, the article text is reasonably close to accurate when you look at exactly what it says, but since it's a side-observation, it's probably worth replacing it with some more generic statement which is less liable to misunderstanding. Just for the record, the thumbbail credit division is that the basic ideas have wide credit (the History of Radar thing is good); the British had the first useful radar (the CH air defense line); they also invented the magnetron; the MIT Rad Lab did very important development work (the details of which I don't recall off the top of my head). I was thinking of moving that whole para to the intro (it's a good para to round out the intro); will improve the radar mention in the process. Noel (talk) 15:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You are actually right. The basic physics of the cavity magnetron which was the central and most important component of radar, was invented in England by Randall and Boot, Rudolf Peierls, Mark Oliphant and many others.- Ashujo

The article says that radar was developed at MIT Rad Lab, not invented. Which is not terribly misleading in my opinion -- quite a lot of the radar actually used, and I'm fairly sure most of the advanced models, were designed there during the war. In any event, the point of its mention is really just to link to the Rad Lab, I believe, as another one of the Big Science endeavors during WWII. It could easily be worded differently if someone has a problem with it, this doesn't have to be a descent into techno-nationalism. --Fastfission 03:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Right, I was going to reword that paragraph and move it to the end of the intro (to replace the "bombs dropped on Japan" stuff). However... I went to see if we had a generic article on code-breaking in WWII which I could reference, and discovered that the WWII code-breaking pages (other than Enigma) were in a state, and got involved in a major project to improve them, and never got back to this! (Typical Wikipedia experience, sigh.. :-) Anyway, I'll take a crack at this now, see what you think. Noel (talk) 14:47, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
PS: I wouldn't want to make any definitive statement about "advanced models" without a lot more research. I can't lay my hands on my copy of Friedman, Naval Radar at the moment (misfiled, somewhere, I guess), but e.g. Johnson, Secret War says that development of the H2S airborne ground imaging radar was done by TRE in Malvern. (Alas, Price, Instruments of Darkness has a lot of talk about how stuff was used operationally, but no details on who did the development.) Noel (talk) 14:47, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fine point; Tolman, Berkeley summer '42 school --to Fastfission

Fastfission said in history: "I am fairly sure that Tolman was not at that summer meeting, though Serber does credit him with an early version of implosion." Can you corroborate his nonpresence? You edited out "Tolman", and my reference from Serber that SPECIFICALLy said he was there, (although he could be mistaken of course... ). I found another place where Serber says it: LA Primer, UC Press page xxx-xxxii, and also page 59. A general wiki comment: Please, authors, more footnotes and references, it would help the serious reader and Wiki credibility as well. And that includes more weblinks as well as articles, books, films. In my opinion, extremely detailed, highly technical references that are on topic ARE OK. No one's forcing anyone to read them; provides a service to the next guy; saves time, which is the whole point of the wikithing. 64.168.31.37 05:59, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't remember how Serber words it (is this from the Primer or the Annotations?) but most other sources don't list Tolman as one of the participants of the conference. Herken's Brotherhood of the Bomb (which I consider a pretty reliable source, more than Serber's memory and Primer) lists on pages 63-65: Oppenheimer, Serber, Nelson, Frankel, Van Vleck, Konopinski, Bloch, Bethe, and Teller. He cites quite a few sources on this as well. Anyway, that was my justification (I spent some time looking up the participants for a project I did, and Tolman was never one of names I have come across in the historical literature). I have to admit I am more likely to trust the historian's assessments than a scientist who wrote the Primer less as a work of history and more as a work of expedience, but that's a personal bias, I realize. Maybe I'll get some time to check what Rhodes has as well... --Fastfission 03:37, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There is some on-point discussion at Wikipedia talk:Cite sources#Proposed in-text citation guidelines which may be of interest in terms of citing sources for specific points.
As to the sources, I agree, the more the better, but I make a habit of dividing them up into "Further reading" (i.e. things I recommend for the average reader who wants to know more than is in the article) and "References" (for the specialist, or people who want to verify statements in the article). My reasoning for so doing is that the writer of the article knows the sources, and can give guidance about which ones an average reader would find useful; to leave that info out would leave readers floundering, and going to trouble to locate material that turns out to be too advanced for them. Noel (talk) 23:02, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rhodes also does not list Tolman as one of the participants- Ashujo 21 Dec

http://www.childrenofthemanhattanproject.org/HISTORY/H-05b.htm this page proports to be: "Copyright Notice For Scientific and Technical Information Only Copyright © 1998-2001 The Regents of the University of California. For All Information Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the University of California, operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Go.." and is obvious a precursor to the wiki page. "..; portentions for the future of mankind " etc. Copyvio? Doesn't say where THEY got it. And it lists TOLMAN. 64.168.30.4 23:02, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, they clearly got it from http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/02_berkeley-summer.html whose copyright status is somewhat sketchy in my opinion (though I'd rather not use it), as it is apparently the product of Los Alamos National Lab which would make it public domain material as a product of the US federal government, as I understand it. I see it lists Tolman too, but I'd still rather find a historian who says explicitly that Tolman was a participant in the conference itself—rather than simply around the area and in communication with Oppenheimer, et al, which he certainly was. But it's really not all that important to me in the long run. --Fastfission 23:33, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The copyright crap is what's bugging me. If it's public domain, what is all this copyright crap on the LLNL site. And according to that site, copies have to cite that page, which is contrary to wikifreedom. Yet the wiki page still maintains sentences lifted directly from LLNL, but no credit to LLNL site, contrary to LLNL "copyright" claim. My understanding of Federal employee non copyright is same as yours, but why doesn't it say that? I guess there are no sanctions against making bogus copyright claims. As far was the question of Tolman, yes it proves nothing, the author may have just got the "fact" from Serber's account; it doesn't count as a separate account.64.168.29.165 19:37, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The copyright status of national lab work has confused me for some time. The work of federal employees is not eligible for copyright, as I understand it. But the work of California state employees, and in particular the work of employees of the University of California, are subject to strong copyrights applied de facto by the UC (all employees must sign both a loyalty oath and a patent/copyright waiver before beginning work). So is an employee of Los Alamos—a federal lab managed by the University of California—a federal or state employee? Is the work eligible for copyright? I have no idea. I'll try asking someone I know who does a lot of work in intellectual property law to see if there are any easy answers. In any event, I think it is poor to have a Wikipedia article cut and pasted from any source. This article needs a lot of work anyway though (it currently doesn't even cover the major bases of the Manhattan Project), which I don't really have the time to invest at the moment. Perhaps some stalwart soul does, though... --Fastfission 21:45, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
May turn on whether *employee* or *contractor*. 67.113.3.43 23:22, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Italian navigator

was: "A coded message, "The Italian navigator (referring to Fermi) has landed in the newworld" was then sent to President Roosevelt to tell him that the experiment was a success."

wrong; it seemed implausible someone would talk to the president in code. the reference is Rhodes, Mak. of the A.B. , p442. A *phone call* between Compton and *Conant* in WashDC. In code to foil wiretappers, presumeably.
"Compton records their improvised dialogue: Jim, I said, " you'll be interested to know that the Italian navigator has just landed in the new world." Then, half apologetically, because I had led the S1 Committee to believe that it would be another week or more before the pile could be completed, I added, "the earth was not as large as he had estimated, and he arrived at the new world sooner than he had expected." "Is that so, " was Conant's excited reponse. "Were the natives friendly?" "Everyone landed safe and happy."64.165.203.60 08:27, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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