14
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Why did it take an army of physicists, working on a huge complex, so long to produce a working nuclear device, while it seems so easy in theory?
One of the big issues was isotope separation. Extracting uranium 235 from uranite was a huge problem that took quite an effort to overcome. In fact, just before the war started Niels Bohr believed ...
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11
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Why did it take an army of physicists, working on a huge complex, so long to produce a working nuclear device, while it seems so easy in theory?
(1) Weapon-grade uranium is hard to make - it took almost a year to separate 64 kg of weapon-grade uranium for the bomb in the Y-12 Oak Ridge facility, so "Little boy" bomb was not even tested (they ...
8
votes
To what extent were the scientists involved in the Manhattan project aware of the goals?
The sources are abundant and easy to find, for example
Leslie Groves, Now it can be told. A history of Manhattan project (written by a project leader from the military side),
Robert Jungk, Brighter ...
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8
votes
Why did it take an army of physicists, working on a huge complex, so long to produce a working nuclear device, while it seems so easy in theory?
You should do some preliminary research before asking such a question. It was not so easy, even in theory. They did not know anything about Plutonium when they started, it simply did not exist. They ...
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7
votes
Accepted
Was the United Kingdom the only faction in the Second World War that used Operations Research?
Operations Research is a somewhat eclectic term. The British coined and promoted it, so in the early stages they were the only ones using it even if others were doing similar things under different ...
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7
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What new physics was discovered or needed as a result of the Manhattan Project?
A side note first - when dealing with non-physicists, they will generally regard quantum mechanics as the end-all-be-all of physics, the coolest weirdest stuff. So, it is not surprising that your ...
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7
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Why didn't Germany succeed in building a nuclear bomb in second world war?
On my opinion, there are two important reasons:
a) German government did not press the matter. Nobody convinced it that the thing is plausible and important. (In the US there was a lobby who could ...
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6
votes
Accepted
Why were British WWII computing machines and their projects destroyed after the war ended?
To keep secret the level of expertise in cryptanalysis so future opponents wouldn't put effort into improving their own codes. Probably pointless because it was inevitable that some details of ...
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6
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Was the United Kingdom the only faction in the Second World War that used Operations Research?
In World War II, Andrey Kolmogorov did what you might call operations research, in Russia, for air defense problems. His wikipedia bio article says
During World War II Kolmogorov contributed to ...
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5
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Why did it take an army of physicists, working on a huge complex, so long to produce a working nuclear device, while it seems so easy in theory?
I can only recommend R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb once more and very strongly. It is also instructive to note that although Leo Szilard [sp] was inspired to understand and fight for the ...
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4
votes
To what extent were the scientists involved in the Manhattan project aware of the goals?
The website http://manhattanprojectvoices.org is full of interviews with participants in the Manhattan project. Some interviews address exactly the question asked here.
For example, here are two ...
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4
votes
To what extent were the scientists involved in the Manhattan project aware of the goals?
New scientific and engineering personal arriving at Los Alamos were given a series of lectures about the project, the relevant physics and the proposed designs of the weapons. These were later ...
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3
votes
Does war speed up technological advancements and research?
In physics, the four most important developments had nothing to with war or the preparation of war: Newtons calculus and his theory of gravitation, Maxwells equations, Einsteins theory of special and ...
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3
votes
Accepted
Does war speed up technological advancements and research?
Not only war but preparations to war, military-related research had very large influence on the development of science and technology. Of the recent examples I mention GPS,
Internet, space ...
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3
votes
Was 'Operation Paperclip' controversial at the time?
According to one history that I've read, denazification was done more thoroughly by the former Soviet Union than by the Western powers, although mainly on class lines. The Weatern Powers were ...
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2
votes
Why didn't Germany succeed in building a nuclear bomb in second world war?
By accident I stumbled upon a recent article about the topic in a german science journal:
http://www.spektrum.de/magazin/warum-es-hitlers-atombombe-nie-gab/1427403
It is based on a the following ...
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2
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classified dissertations in WWII
I have one example of a dissertation that was classified during World War 2 but declassified just after the war. The dissertation of George T. Reynolds is titled "Studies in the production, ...
2
votes
Accepted
Scientific Collaborations during World War
The most famous example of a collaboration between scientists/mathematicians during World War 2 is the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), an intelligence organisation which had the task of ...
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2
votes
Why was André Weil in Finland?
Since no answers are forthcoming, I'll write up what I've found online without digging too deep.
In summary, I get the following impression:
He wanted to leave France to escape the war, primary by ...
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2
votes
First Recognition of the Atom Bomb
You might want to look up answers to:
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/241706/first-atomic-powered-transportation-in-science-fiction[1]
And:
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/2742/...
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1
vote
First Recognition of the Atom Bomb
I read that column, and noticed there is no mention of fission, only fusion:
Nuclear energy is incomparably greater than the molecular energy which
we use today. The coal a man can get in a day can ...
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1
vote
Why didn't Germany succeed in building a nuclear bomb in second world war?
As regards the Soviet's quick progress on the bomb please read Dark Sun which is Richard Rhodes second book on the making of the atomic bomb. Early on he describes the wholesale shipping of plane ...
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1
vote
Why didn't Germany succeed in building a nuclear bomb in second world war?
Given enough time and resources, the Germans would have produced a bomb.
What held them back was firstly that they were persecuting a large section of their existing scientific and engineering ...
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