History 138 - Class 35

History 138: Science in the U.S.

Class 35 (11/11)
The physicists' war: the bomb
(There is no class 34.)

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Outline

World War II
The nature of the conflict
Scientific contributions
The physicists' turn

Local manifestations
Redeploying the cyclotron
Radiochemistry
Los Alamos
    Its work, its product
    (Aside: its competitors)
    And its oversight

Responses
Knowing sin
The Franck Report (1945)

Names and Terms

Primary	Secondary
calutron uranium (specifically, U-235) plutonium Oak Ridge (TN): U-235 separation Met Lab (Chicago): Pu studies Hanford (WA): Pu production Los Alamos (NM): bomb design Gen. Leslie Groves (1896-1970) Manhattan Engineer District, Army Corps of Engineers Manhattan Project Trinity James Franck (1882-1964)	operations research penicillin (antibiotic) Ernest O. Lawrence (1901-1958, NP 1939) J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999) Robert Sproul (1891-1975)

Assignment

Carl Sandburg, "Mr. Attila," in Complete Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950), 624. [not for writing assignment]

What images of the scientist was Sandburg making use of?
How does this match up with the images we have been following this semester?

"Before Hiroshima," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1:10 (May 1946): 1-4, 16.

Was there a consensus among the scientists about what should be done with the bomb?
What arguments did the Franck report deploy to argue for its recommendation?
On what basis did scientists feel themselves justified in making this political proposal?