Post archives
Filtering for posts tagged with ‘1940s’
2012
September 2012
28
Redactions
A debate by Leo Szilard and Edward Teller on the moral responsibility of the scientist just before the bombing of Hiroshima.
August 2012
31
Visions
The security badges produced for the Los Alamos project present a dizzying display of the many people who worked on the atomic bomb.
29
Redactions
A document from 1947 points towards an interesting Los Alamos policy: banning all spheres, innocuous or not, from technical areas.
24
Visions
In 1945, Tinian was the hub of the Pacific Front. Today, it's a nearly-empty tropical paradise. For now, anyway.
22
Redactions
What would have happened if the planes carrying the first atomic bombs had crashed on takeoff? Bad things.
15
Redactions
What the first technical history of the atomic bomb did — and didn't — say about the work of designing the bomb.
10
Visions
American newspaper front pages from the first five days of the atomic bomb's public debut.
8
Redactions
When the scientists at Los Alamos made plans for how to use the atomic bomb, they optimized them for the burning of civilians.
6
Meditations
The only reason we didn't cross a moral line at Hiroshima is because we'd already long since crossed it.
1
Redactions
In November 1945, Beria sent an agent to interview Niels Bohr about the atomic bomb. Both Bohr and Beria, though, held their cards close.
July 2012
27
Visions
A recent Russian-language book has a treasure trove of rare images of the Soviet atomic bomb project.
25
Redactions
The top WWII scientific administrator's plan for controlling BW warfare was in reality a trial balloon for a plan to control the bomb.
16
Redactions
A rare first-hand account of the first atomic bomb test, from the President of Harvard University.
11
Redactions
Even the real Dr. Strangelove dreaded getting judged by the standards of "loyalty" required for a security clearance.
4
Redactions
Enrico Fermi is today remembered as a great contributor to the American bomb project, but in the beginning, he was an "enemy alien."
2
Meditations
Reports from the annual meeting for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations: Farm Hall, David Lilienthal, Atoms for Peace.
June 2012
29
Visions
The exuberance and ambivalence of the bomb, as seen through the lens of editorial cartoons from August 1945.
22
Visions
Do the eccentric hairstyles of two bomb designers tell us anything about the history of the bomb?
15
Visions
Considering the test site of the first Soviet atomic bombs, from 1949 to the present.
6
Redactions
A new theory on why Joseph Rotblat left Los Alamos, and Groves' warning to the AEC that he had "doubts" about certain people on the project.
May 2012
28
Meditations
Gas centrifuges could have been made to work during the Manhattan Project, but they didn't figure out how.
25
Visions
Did the President of Harvard draw an atomic bomb in 1943?
9
Redactions
Barely a month after the bombings of Hiroshima, the Army Air Forces made its first request for more atomic bombs — and a list of targets.
2
Redactions
In 1946, scientists at the U. of Penn. attempted to publish a book about atomic bomb design. 60+ years later, here is the censored chapter.
April 2012
27
Visions
Stalin was a paranoid guy, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.
25
Redactions
What would have happened if Japan hadn't surrendered and the US had continued to drop atomic bombs on Japanese cities?
18
Redactions
General Groves gets grilled by the press at Oak Ridge on the subject of "the secret," the "Super," and radioactivity at Hiroshima.
16
Meditations
Incredible secrecy plus boring jobs equaled a morale problem. Manhattan Project administrators found an unusual solution: sports.
13
Visions
The origins of one of the most persistent totems of the atomic age.
11
Redactions
One of the trickiest parts of the Manhattan Project was the fact that it was a secret; that there was *a* secret was *the* secret.
