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NNadir

(33,512 posts)
14. In 1943, after his famous meeting with Heisenberg, Neils Bohr escaped Denmark to England...
Mon Jun 10, 2019, 09:56 PM
Jun 2019

...an eventually made is way to Los Alamos where he drew a diagram of the German nuclear technology about which Heisenberg told him.

The American/British/Hungarian/German scientists found it amusing, and realized immediately it wasn't a bomb at all.

The Alsos mission found the reactor, which was basically along the lines of an early CANDU, and concluded it wouldn't work all that well.

Overall, the Americans found the German efforts laughable.

The Japanese also had a nuclear weapon program, but like Germany had nothing like the resources to see it through. The program that did succeed began as a British project, when impounded "Enemy Aliens" Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, at British request, calculated the correct (more or less) critical mass of U-235 to make a bomb. In 1942, the British program was way ahead of the Americans, but certainly lacked the resources to see the matter through.

Bohr was stunned at the scale of the American effort, but was considered by Leslie Groves to be nothing more than a thorn in his side.

The debate has long been whether Heisenberg was incompetent to build a bomb or reactor, or whether he was deliberately sabotaging the effort.

I go with the former.

For the Nazis to build either a reactor or a bomb, they would need "Jewish Physics" which Heisenberg knew quite well but couldn't necessarily acknowledge, but he was never really the equivalent of Fermi, not even close. Although a great theoretician, Heisenberg lacked the experimental abilities that Fermi showed.

I saw Fermi's reactor last week at ORNL on the AMSE tour. It's a graphite machine, quite large, quite primitive, but it ran for 20 years.

Was not the distruction Wellstone ruled Jun 2019 #1
I was thinking this as well, but now it seems it was more of an organizational problem. hunter Jun 2019 #5
Forgot about the Boron Wellstone ruled Jun 2019 #7
There's a fascinating TV miniseries, The Heavy Water War, The Velveteen Ocelot Jun 2019 #2
I'll look for it. hunter Jun 2019 #8
Depleted uranium zipplewrath Jun 2019 #3
Depleted uranium is used because there are huge stockpiles left over from uranium enrichment. hunter Jun 2019 #4
One of my Dad's favorite jokes SCantiGOP Jun 2019 #6
Every "alternative history" following the success of the Trinity Test is moot. hunter Jun 2019 #10
"The U.S.A. would have kept dropping atomic bombs on Japan until they surrendered" Javaman Jun 2019 #16
Caution zipplewrath Jun 2019 #11
This is all well documented by Richard Rhodes localroger Jun 2019 #9
It's harder than one thinks zipplewrath Jun 2019 #12
I remember when I first read about this, still amazes me that it was allowed to happen... Javaman Jun 2019 #18
To quote from the article posted: hunter Jun 2019 #15
Actually it was laughable localroger Jun 2019 #20
that was such a brilliant book. Probably my favorite. nt Javaman Jun 2019 #17
The real irony SCantiGOP Jun 2019 #13
I read a lot of alt history and I always wondered... Javaman Jun 2019 #19
Many Russians were willing to embrace the Germans as saviors localroger Jun 2019 #21
In 1943, after his famous meeting with Heisenberg, Neils Bohr escaped Denmark to England... NNadir Jun 2019 #14
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