Post archives
Filtering for posts tagged with ‘1940s’
2012
April 2012
6
Visions
A selection of Time magazine covers featuring nuclear weapons topics over the decades.
4
Redactions
What did General Groves and Robert Oppenheimer talk about in their first post-Hiroshima telephone call?
March 2012
30
Visions
Alternative views of the first nuclear test.
28
Redactions
The unusual history of insuring the bomb in the United States — yes, insurance — dates back to the Manhattan Project.
23
Visions
Uncle Sam wants you to shut your mouth.
21
Redactions
The degree to which the UK and Canada should be equal partners with the US in the atomic bomb project was a controversial subject in 1942.
14
Redactions
It should come as no surprise that so much of the work of secrecy is creating ever more baroque and detailed categorization schemes.
9
Visions
It's 1945, just after the Trinity test. Where is General Leslie Groves looking?
7
Redactions
Dissecting President Truman's announcement of the atomic bomb, which was neither written nor actually said by Truman himself.
7
News and Notes
Los Alamos has released some new footage from World War II at the lab. I point out all of the cool dogs in it, and a few other things.
5
Meditations
Vannevar Bush had a problem: French physicists had filed for a patent on the nuclear reactor. A novel form of secrecy was his answer.
2
Visions
Why Life magazine's speculative August 1945 story on the atomic bomb -- and its drawings -- raised the censors' eyebrows.
February 2012
27
Meditations
Recently, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised the work of US scientists in helping the Soviet Union get the atomic bomb. Why?
20
Meditations
New footage has been found of scientists romping around Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project. What does that get us, intellectually?
15
Redactions
General Groves' scientific adviser discusses the implications of the US stopping the production of atomic bombs just after WWII.
1
Redactions
An engineer close to the development of the atom bomb considers the relative risks and benefits of declassifying the concept of "implosion."
January 2012
30
Meditations
A summary of a sticky historical issue: whether civilians or military personnel would physically control the atomic bomb.
27
News and Notes
In early 1942, General Leslie Groves wrote to the future author of the famous Smyth Report for advice about whether his son study physics.
18
Redactions
On the agonizing compromises made when one brother is the country's top nuclear scientist, and the other is a former Communist Party member.
16
Meditations
Reflections on the use of assassination as a means of counter-proliferation, with insights from the history and sociology of science.
11
Redactions
One of the most famous documents of the nuclear age was actually censored when it was first released. Find out what was removed, and why.
2011
December 2011
21
Redactions
Edward Teller's (self-serving) version of the history of the hydrogen bomb, from 1953.
16
Visions
In their quest for appearing serious about secrecy, the U.S. government has gotten increasingly dull in its graphics design.
14
Redactions
Communicating the results of the first atomic bomb from Tinian to Washington, DC, was no easy thing.
7
Redactions
6
News and Notes
5
Meditations
November 2011
25
Visions
23
Redactions
