Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
20 - The Legacy of Los Alamos
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Early Research on Fission: 1933–1943
- 3 The Early Materials Program: 1933–1943
- 4 Setting Up Project Y: June 1942 to March 1943
- 5 Research in the First Months of Project Y: April to September 1943
- 6 Creating a Wartime Community: September 1943 to August 1944
- 7 The Gun Weapon: September 1943 to August 1944
- 8 The Implosion Program Accelerates: September 1943 to July 1944
- 9 New Hopes for the Implosion Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 10 The Nuclear Properties of a Fission Weapon: September 1943 to July 1944
- 11 Uranium and Plutonium: Early 1943 to August 1944
- 12 The Discovery of Spontaneous Fission in Plutonium and the Reorganization of Los Alamos
- 13 Building the Uranium Bomb: August 1944 to July 1945
- 14 Exploring the Plutonium Implosion Weapon: August 1944 to February 1945
- 15 Finding the Implosion Design: August 1944 to February 1945
- 16 Building the Implosion Gadget: March 1945 to July 1945
- 17 Critical Assemblies and Nuclear Physics: August 1944 to July 1945
- 18 The Test at Trinity: January 1944 to July 1945
- 19 Delivery: June 1943 to August 1945
- Epilogue
- 20 The Legacy of Los Alamos
- Notes
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
The United States would not have been able to complete the atomic bomb project without its vigorous economy and substantial industrial facilities. However, the scientific resources of the nation were just as important, given the existing gaps in scientific knowledge at the time Los Alamos opened its doors. President Roosevelt's decision to support atomic bomb research preceded the first demonstration of a divergent chain reaction, the development of an industrial-scale method for separating 235U, and determination of plutonium's chemical and physical properties. In organizing the American atomic bomb project, Vannevar Bush drew on a sizable community of well-trained scientists having a wide repertoire of techniques and approaches. In bringing these tools to bear on the wartime problem of building the atomic bomb, the Los Alamos scientists developed a new approach to research.
What were the elements of this approach? First, the research was bound even more tightly than was conventional science to the behavior of artifacts and apparatus. The bombs had to explode, the detonators to fire, and the shape of the gadgets was constrained by that of the B-29 bomb bays. The technology had, in principle, to be totally reliable. Malfunctioning meant failure – it could no longer be construed as but another step in the process of understanding the physical world. In a context in which the lack of funding was not a constraint on research, one result was that solutions were often approached in several ways at once.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Critical AssemblyA Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945, pp. 403 - 417Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993