History 181B - Class 35

History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 35 (4/18/03)
The physicists' war

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Outline

World War II as turning point: Why were the physicists so central?

Mobilizing the physicists
    Germany
    Japan
    The Soviet Union
    The Western Allies: France, Britain, ...
    And the United States

The U.S. radar project
    The nature of the physicists' work
    Setting the standards and the scale
    Radar vs. the bomb

Names and terms

Primary	Secondary
V-2 rocket Hans Bethe (1906- ), NP 1967 MIT Radiation Laboratory (Rad Lab) radar = RAdio Detection And Ranging black box I.I. Rabi (1898-1988), NP 1944	Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) James Conant (1893-1978) proximity fuse

Assignment

"Lawrence and his Laboratory: A Historian's View of the Lawrence Years," on the web .

    Third assignment: Read ch. 3 and episode 2.
    List the different scientific contributions Lawrence's lab made to the war effort.
    Then, along with scientific knowledge, what else did the lab provide?
    In what ways did the war change the lab's atmosphere and operation?
    Extra: What would have happened to the Manhattan Project without Lawrence's lab? What would have happened to Lawrence's lab without the Manhattan Project?