The RaLa Experiment: Key to the Atomic Bomb

[@mskellyrlv]

This is some of the best film and photographic documentation of Manhattan Project activity I've seen. Great job.

[@msimon6808]

I was a USN nuke a long time ago ('67). We got a little of this in nuke school. This is much more comprehensive.

[@211212112]

I heard Teller tell of the moment they considered implosion as likely to work. Johnny Neumann quickly calculated the pressure that could be reached. Johnny being a human calculator and also working with the US Army explosives specialists. Teller had just happened to do some previous work so that he knew plutonium was compressible above a certain pressure. Johnny's calculation was well above the pressure Teller knew would make plutonium compress and said so and so on it went.

[@syfieldsjr1576]

Now this is what I like to call an informative and a QUALITY video. Well done!

[@inyobill]

Pretty much all of these presentations ignore the development and casting of the conventional explosive lenses. As pointed out in this presentation, the hardest part of the job. After lack of progress by one institution, the problem was given to NOTS (Naval Ordnance Test Station) at China Lake, California. This was the grand dad of the current organization the Naval Air Weapons Center, China Lake.

[@channelview8854]

I agree. In the days before CNC machining, would love to know how the complex shapes needed were generated by manual machining methods.

[@terrywilder9]

@@channelview8854 You're assuming CNC methods are superior to manual methods. Unless someone "manually" builds a one purpose dedicated machine this is false!

[@OpenGL4ever]

​@@channelview8854 CNC machines are fast and have a high level of repeatability, as long as the chisel is regularly re-sharpened and adjusted. Machine tools without computer support already existed back then. This also makes very precise workpieces possible, but there is a risk that people are not careful and end up cutting away too much. In this case you have to do the work all over again if you want it to be completely accurate. But it's possible.

[@jaik195701]

I think Chrysler was enlisted to make the molds for the lenses

[@inyobill]

@@jaik195701 You're kidding, I guess?

[@RTD1947]

My Father worked on the “Super” I grew up on “ the Hill”. Thanks for this amplification. The pictures brought back many fond memories.

[@OpenGL4ever]

Was it difficult to develop the Super? Or was it enough to simply place a normal atomic bomb next to enough lithium or deuterium?

[@RTD1947]

The Hydrogen bomb was a totally different animal....Dr. Teller had an idea it would work and be stronger than the uranium bomb, but was overruled by Opie,, much to his dismay....@@OpenGL4ever

[@tigertiger1699]

That is super .. cool… , an amazing feat of engineering that they achieved 👍 cheers for sharing Mate🙏🙏🙏

[@letsburn00]

@@OpenGL4ever development of the super was extremely difficult. A large number of designs were developed. The problem of generating something which created high enough density and temperature for long enough for Fusion was extremely difficult. Eventually, they (according to what appears to be true based on claimed non classified documents) worked out that radiation pressure with low density material (possibly possibly aerogel with modern designs) was sufficient. A number of designs were tried and failed the design stage. It's generally agreed that Ulam worked it out and Teller did the non genius work.

[@OpenGL4ever]

@@letsburn00 Thank you very much for your answer.

[@pop5678eye]

This crisis reminds me of the Apollo lunar landing problem. In its original version the command and lunar landing modules were to be one and the same and landing on the Moon as one. ('direct ascent') No orbital docking would be needed and only before Earth re-entry would the Apollo spacecraft separate. This combination would have required a rocket twice the mass called Nova. When it became obvious that such rocket could not be built in time to meet the 1969 deadline they went with the more complicated but feasible orbital rendezvous option.

[@dimitrigagnon1233]

you know, i just realized. That is the exact solution i came up with in kerbal space program when i wanted to do a landing and come back from the moon. I found that it was just incredibly inefficient to land the entire thing and so i would have to create such a massive rocket that i would be wasting my time. So i learned the entire process of docking first and then to went to learning how to land and come back because that was easier to achieve then to make such a rocket.

[@kennethng8346]

One definite correction and one possible. The definite: the amount of plutonium240 was lowered by limiting the uranium exposure time in the reactor. This made the implosion easier. The other, I believe the gun uranium bomb was tested by having the outer shell not stop, but continue past the inner plug, and by not using a neutron reflector. This part I'm not sure of as its been many years since I read "The Manhatten Project". Other than those, the video was quite good.

[@malectric]

That criticality test of U235 was embodied in the so-called Godiva fast burst reactor - "the guillotine" where a critical mass was created for a fraction of a second by dropping a plug of U235 through a ring of U235 (or some similar configuration). The reaction would have been self-quenching because of material expansion as it heated as well as carefully including *just enough* material in the experiment and also there was the absence of a tamper but it was a nasty experiment considering that a supercritical mass finishes reacting (boom) in less than a microsecond.

[@Ang3lUki]

A number of textbooks i've read mention the difference between gun and implosion type bombs, but never actually stated why plutonium wasn't used in gun type bombs. Interesting to finally know why.

[@michelmeijer4509]

Because the contamination of plutonium 240 in weapons grade plutonium 239 messed up the formation of a concentrated sphere of criticality in gun devices. Too much neutron flux would occur before the slug arrived completely in the receiving part

[@malectric]

Interestingly, the first Chinese bombs including thermonuclear weapons used U235 in an implosion configuration. They didn't need to of course and later switched to using plutonium. I found this out reading a fascinating article on the history of the Chinese nuclear weapons program in a Physics journal. And a sobering thought about all of this: had not U235 been available naturally, the nuclear weapons age might not have happened at all because U235 is the one fissile isotope readily available and plutonium production relies on working fission reactors.

[@michelmeijer4509]

@@malectric can you share the reference of the journal? I am interested to check it out.

[@NichoFilm]

@@malectric You forget Thorium. Strange logic though - if plants did not make oxygen, we would not be here to make the nuclear weapon age happen.

[@malectric]

@@NichoFilm A thorium reaction requires a neutron source as far as I'm aware. It cannnot by itself produce a sustaining chain reaction unlike U235 which is comparatively neutron-richer.

[@chuckgrigsby9664]

My wife and I, and our dogs, used to love the Bayo Canyon hike. I had heard of the RaLa tests but had no idea that they had been conducted in Bayo Canyon.

[@nickpn23]

Thank you. That was most informative, with just the right amount of technical detail for me to understand. Now I'm off to look up exploding bridge switches or whatever they're called.

[@TimPerfetto]

You're welcome

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

Exploding Bridge Wire. They're friggin awesome, it's a gold or platinum wire a few thousandths of an inch thick and anywhere from .25 to 2.5 mm long that is fired by a capacitor, it runs about 5 kilovolts and 1000 amps through that piece of wire in a millisecond, which literally makes the wire detonate. They are timed so accurately that the shockwave is concentric to the entire core within half a millimeter.

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

NickPN, s I note above, the "right amount of technical detail" is substantially wrong. and as TheExplosiveGuy makes clear below that, there isn't much detail there. It's typically shoddy KZbin work.

[@Baphomet23]

@@TheDavidlloydjones Well, it was about what I can cope with.

[@137bob3d]

a few years back my suzuki 225 enduro stopped running. sonething in the ignition. this led to the topic of CDI's. and via much experimenting and time came to realize (tom clancy's book ' the sum of all fears " helped too ) that an ordinary spark plug is a device analagous to those bridge-wires. and the same capacitor in your car's ignition is very similar to the action of all those pulses of energy zooming to each facet of the soccer-ball of explosives around the sphere of Pu.

[@robvog8134]

My dad was drafted out of Cal Tech and sent to Los Alamos where he worked on the detonators for Fat man. He was the one who climbed the tower to hook up the wires from the capacitors to the detonators in Alamagordo. He used to say, "Japan started the war but we finished it." The problem was that all the detonators had to fire at the same time, or else the bomb wouldn't work. They achieved this by testing and statistical analysis.

[@LolUGotBusted]

Seth Neddermeyer, on a massive team effort, was quietly studying the correct methods TWO YEARS before everyone else caught up. THIS is the madlad who made it all happen.

[@animalntelligence3170]

In either a book or a movie they have Oppenheimer talking about what a "sweet problem" the bomb was and I would not be surprised if implosion was what he was thinking about if he indeed said this. It is something I feel very bad about to this day -- that a-bombs were used TWICE on humans but in the abstract, the entire project was incredibly interesting, filled with satisfying (or "sweet") subproblems.

[@malectric]

In a documentary I once watched the "sweet solution" referred to the problem of igniting a fusion reaction using a fission device, namely using X-rays travelling at the speed of light to rapidly compress and heat the fusion fuel.@@animalntelligence3170

[@Bialy_1]

Nope. The name of the madlad who made it all happen is Allan Karlsson...😁

[@malectric]

@@Bialy_1 I recall from a documentary on the project that Neddermeyer was sidelined because while he had the idea, he didn't have the knowledge to make it work. It was an explosives expert (the name you mention?) from, I think the British navy who knew about explosive lenses as applied to underwater mines.

[@Motoguzzi750]

George Kistiakowsky to Neddermeyers work forwards. William Penney may have been involved.

[@inzepinz]

Interesting story, always wondered how they figured these things out.

[@andrewnorgrove6487]

England passed on the knowledge to build so called bombs

[@jerrypolverino6025]

Engineering physics.

[@johndonaldson3619]

A little gem of a story - thank you!

[@sequoyah59]

How on earth did they manage to machine the explosives so perfectly with the proper radius of the outside of the charge and how did they manage to machine the plutonium pit so perfectly? Investigation of this and a report back would be fascinating. I have also wondered how they managed to find the capacity to manufacture the facilities at Hanford and Oak Ridge. Just processing the silver for the calutron magnets would be a monumental task. I have heard that what became the Atlas Bradford FL-4S pipe connection was made for the gasseous diffusion plant where the connectors had to be molecule tight and the pipe work never to be opened again. A special leak detection box was made to test the connections. Most failures of testing are failure of the test apparatus.

[@davidh9844]

Help from the space aliens trying to get home.

[@johntrottier1162]

Both Comp B (fast Explosive) and Baratol (slow explosive) can be safely melted and poured into a mold. By trial and error the machine shop at Los Alamos produced the molds that were used. The pouring process was tricky and often bubbles would form in the explosive. The lenses were laboriously inspected and molten explosive injected into the holes that were found. The plutonium core was hot pressed into the shape required and nickle coated to prevent corrosion. The Manhattan Project enjoyed a AAA priority from the War Production board that Groves used to get the facilities he needed. He could and did get people and resources from all across the USA, with very few people having any idea what they were doing. One story about Groves system of procurement goes as follows: A general (who outranked Grove's one star) was incensed when he found out that he could not get tires for his trucks because the Manhattan Project had "retasked" some of the production facilities the General needed. He rolled a worn out truck tire into Groves office, hitting his desk, and followed the tire in, demanding that Groves release "his" production facilities. Groves looked up, said "No" and went back to his paper work. The general shouted and threatened him, and Groves just looked up and said "The only person who can over rule my decisions is the President. Go see him and get out of my office!" The general and his tire left, never to be heard from again.

[@rickintexas1584]

This was a very informative and easy to follow video. Thanks!

[@fredstevens129]

3:50 Gotta love that guy's tie...on the right.

[@libertariantranslator1929]

Very good explanations, thanks.

[@peterparsons7141]

Terrific, well presented and very interesting.

[@vxrdrummer]

That was very good. Short but sweet. I didn't know the implosion tests had left so many harmful waste products behind! That stuff gets everywhere!!!

[@Smedley1947]

Far worse than glitter contamination.

[@adammoss5284]

Scintillating

[@colinjohnson5515]

There’s a YT doc on the Windscale Fire England’s version of our X-10 pile what spewed radiation particulate near a town for SEVERAL WEEKS. “Those who plant dates do not harvest dates” is hauntingly accurate and terrifying to comprehend.

[@msimon6808]

@@adammoss5284 Thread winner.

[@rickhibdon11]

If you're really interested in this video, read Luis Alvarez's autobiography. "Adventures of a Physicist" It's amazing to find out how these brilliant minds work.

[@tigertiger1699]

🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@timmotel5804]

Good Day & Thank You for the suggestion. I just ordered that book.

[@syfieldsjr1576]

I completely agree!

[@timmotel5804]

I received the book this morning.

[@rickhibdon11]

@@timmotel5804 Let me know how you like it

[@RS0593]

Thank you!

[@timmotel5804]

6/2024: Good Day from the future. Very Cool. I was born in 1952 and have followed nuclear development all my life. This is one that I wasn't aware of. I did visit the "Trinity Site" on it's 50th Anniversary. One of my few "Bucket List Items". Thank You & Best Regards.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

I spoke to one of the soccer ball guys for a few hours when he was near hospice care. I knew his nurse in a roundabout way and went to his home to see her, thereby meeting him. Kinda disappointed in myself I don't remember his name, he was a fascinating guy. Talked about the problem of wiring for synchronicity for a long time.

[@chemistryofquestionablequa6252]

TATB explosive, bridgewire detonators and explosive lenses. I don’t think most people realize how important just those three inventions are.

[@NichoFilm]

TATB was not used in the early nuclear weapons, see www.llnl.gov/sites/www/files/1976.pdf. Amusing to see that they were trying to make nuclear weapons safer, if you use ChatGPT 4 to research them it warns you that 'Nuclear weapons are dangerous'!

[@airdaleva42]

Very informative. whether you get a better audio system or not you done well.

[@SJR_Media_Group]

I live 1 hour away from Hanford. No one working there knew anything more than what they needed to know for their specific task. Secrecy was strictly enforced. After the 'Bombs' were dropped, the entire world learned. Those working at Oak Ridge, Hanford, and other locations finally understood why secrecy was so important. Today, the reactors are gone at Hanford. Cleanup of dangerous byproducts continues to this day.

[@NormReitzel]

Consider that Hanford was producing weapons to kill people a million at a time, so "safety" was a very relative thing.

[@OpenGL4ever]

The Calutron girls enriched U235 in Oak Ridge for the little boy bomb used in Hiroshima without knowing it. They only knew, they do something for the military to win the war.

[@robertsullivan4773]

Very good I actually understood a lot of that. Enough to showoff at a cocktail party of normal folks😅

[@msimon6808]

Your next assignment is switch debounce.

[@jeanemery7576]

what drinks are they serving at a party where this comes up as chatter..😂

[@OpenGL4ever]

If I were stuck in an elevator with someone for 8 hours, I would have plenty to talk about about the bomb.

[@JonMartinYXD]

As implosion techniques advanced they would go on to use hollow cores and then levitated hollow cores and then cores with tritium gas in the hollow.

[@Neptunium]

very nice video! I thought about making one about the RaLa too but never got around to it ! good job!

[@CanadianMacGyver]

Thank you! If there are any other topics you'd like me to cover, you should check out my video topic/Q&A contest: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gavRmGesfNh4iNk. There are still a few days left to enter.

[@msimon6808]

@@CanadianMacGyver You might want to look into switch debounce and all the bad hardware and software out there compared to the recently discovered "Eliminate SPST Debounce Delay with an SR Latch"

[@jimparsons6803]

I've heard the "word," RaLa a couple of times over the years, but I never really knew the exact details. Some of my Chemistry Professors had worked on the Manhattan Project, but they were particularly tight-lipped. The only time that us students got a real peek what might have gone on is when we got to discussing the sensitivity of liquid chromatography. And given the fact that the Lanthanides and Actinides generally show chemistry similar to that of the Element Calcium. To such an extent that if the flow rate were reduced enough or that the interactive medium were tweaked with buffers then one might separate out isotopes of the same elements. Boggle. They were using such columns to apparently calibrate the other bits of equipment and reactors they were using.

[@cosmicHalArizona]

Good 2 know

[@OpenGL4ever]

Unfortunately, the diffusion process is still very energy-intensive, so it will hardly be used as a precursor for the transmutation of radioactive isotopes.

[@Desert-edDave]

Need to ensure your videos audio is produced at a standardized volume like other videos on the platform. You sound like you're talking into the mic from across a dining table.

[@charlesachurch7265]

Fascinating presentation thanks xxx

[@johno1544]

One plus for the gun type design they never bothered to test it before dropping it on Hiroshima. That's how sure they were that design would work.

[@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid]

One big negative is if the plane crashes it can detonate. And American planes carrying A bombs and H bombs have indeed crashed, and not just over US territory.

[@johno1544]

@@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid Thats why they didnt arm Little boy until they were mid flight near Japan. Implosion types also had that issue and have 5 fail safes built into them to try to prevent that. One of the two H bombs lost over Georgia was recovered and 4 of the 5 fail safes had failed. They never found the second H bomb.

[@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid]

@@johno1544 There's been more than just those events. 4 implosion types fell to earth in one incident, where the lenses did detonate on one, spreading plutonium over the area. One bomb was lost at sea in deep ocean but was recovered intact. Even if our anecdotes overlap somewhat it shows how many broken arrows have occurred. Over 30. They carry armed bombs around and drop them or crash. I also found it crazy since they have the birdcage to carry the pit separately- maybe during high stress times like the Cuban Missile Crisis they wanted armed bombs at the ready 24/7. Idk. It's effed up though. There's also the fire in a missile silo once they learned they could keep them armed 24/7 that way. Again the conventional lenses exploded and spread the plutonium but didn't go critical since the timing for compression wasn't perfect.

[@johno1544]

@@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid During parts of the cold war they had armed bombs in the air 24/7. Implosion types are definitely superior for several reason for sure including better yields for the same mass.

[@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid]

@@johno1544 You must know about the Castle Bravo test. Using lithium as a tamper accidentally caused 10x expected yield and harsh radiation. Scientists in underground bunkers 40km away were being irradiated but couldn't be rescued for 24hrs because above ground levels were lethal. Nevermind tickling the dragon's tail, we yank on it constantly.

[@Dilbert-o5k]

Very interesting. I wondered why the two bombs looked so different. It was rumoured that there was a third bomb, but this suggests that may not have been the case

[@sjb3460]

VERY WELL RESEARCHED AND A HIGHLY COMPLICATED SUBJECT EXPLAINED IN LAYMANS TERMS.

[@limabravo6065]

When they refer to a "fizzle" in a plutonium gun type bomb still comes out to a kiloton and a shit ton of fallout due to most of the plutonium being intact when the kaboom happened

[@fjs1111]

Good work my friend

[@96Shalom]

Brought here by Oppenheimer and wow, very informative video!

[@nigeldepledge3790]

The Manhatten Project did not start from a blank slate in 1942. The British Tube Alloys project had already established the theoretical groundwork, and was handed over wholesale to the US in a deal whereby the US agreed to share the outcome of the project with the UK.

[@unclenogbad1509]

The British contingent also brought the explosive lens concept. It was developed for the earthquake and Tallboy bombs, whereby rather than just being bigger, a shaped primary explosive charge directed the main charge fully forward, concentrating the force in one direction rather than just letting it spread everywhere. Funny thing, btw, the Brit contingent hardly ever seem to get a mention in any docs about the Manhattan Project, despite being historically crucial. Even when I watched Oppenheimer, I got annoyed when the only 'Brit' featured was Klaus Fuchs. Ho hum.

[@james6401]

"The Frisch-Peierls memorandum was the first technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon. It was written by expatriate German-Jewish physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls in March 1940 while they were both working for Mark Oliphant at the University of Birmingham in Britain during World War II. The memorandum contained the first calculations about the size of the critical mass of fissile material needed for an atomic bomb. It revealed that the amount required might be small enough to incorporate into a bomb that could be delivered by air. It also anticipated the strategic and moral implications of nuclear weapons. It helped send both Britain and America down a path which led to the MAUD Committee, the Tube Alloys project, the Manhattan Project, and ultimately the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

[@MitzvosGolem1]

Klaus Fuchs...

[@Just-human2000]

Even Oppenheimer is a stupid person, they made him the head of the project because he represents American racism and most of the scientists came from outside America.

[@jaik195701]

@@unclenogbad1509 explosive lenses were not a new idea 1942. They already had high energy and tank shells.

[@alexmaccity]

The gaseous facility is HUGE!!!!

[@ovalwingnut]

Very InTeReStiNg. Thank you...

[@kinzieconrad105]

Saved millions of lives!

[@paulelephant9521]

I've seen some old film of them setting up the Ra-La experiment and it looked very hairy! Radioactive Lanthanum is pretty scary and these guys had to position it wearing standard work clothes and long sticks! That method definitely wouldn't be allowed now!

[@NichoFilm]

Modern Health and Safety regulations make it questionable whether the US can legally make nuclear weapons any more. It is said that they would ignore the health hazards in N. Korea and Iran when they machine the beryllium reflectors needed.

[@blobscott]

That was one of the best explanations.

[@brunonikodemski2420]

Better presentation than most others. We did better triggers later.

[@davefellhoelter1343]

RIP Dr Eathen Allen! he was my dr just a few yrs ago and our family dr before I existed? I noted his Diplomas and asked good questions. He told me he Worked on the Project and was working on and with EMP's before we understood. I knew of EMP's with other science, so he proudly told me MORE! with good questions.

[@OpenGL4ever]

And how many sheets of metal layers do you need to prevent getting modern electronics destroyed from an EMP? And how do you route input and output signals for data transmission from this EMP protective container to the outside?

[@davefellhoelter1343]

as "I Understand" a Faraday Cage must be made to the Frequency of the energy of protection.@@OpenGL4ever I have had milsurp carbon fiber In "My Hands" with copper and or others? woven into the materials for this application.

[@williamallen7836]

​@@OpenGL4ever most modern electronics will be unaffected by an EMP. They simply do not present themselves as a large enough antenna for the induction of energy into the electronics. Now our electric grid is a different matter. Likewise, if the electronics are plugged into a wall outlet at the moment an EMP burst occurs, they can recieve some damage. But cars, and battery powered electronics not plugged in may lockup & need to be restarted, but that will be the extent of the "damage"

[@AppliedCryogenics]

The name of this experiment "RaLa" reminds me of the immortalized human cell line called "HeLa". Completely different topic, but perhaps equally fascinating to read about.

[@JeffMTX]

RaLas are for trains, but HeLas fly overhead ;)

[@SubTroppo]

The photos of general Groves and company are a good reminder for me of why I decided to avoid having any children after learning of "Mutually Assured Destruction" in the mid to late 1960's - just when I was getting "interested" in girls [oh, the irony]. ps How we've managed to survive this long is a miracle - given the nature of the personalities and institutions involved in MAD. pps Wake up every day and kiss your Rs goodbye!

[@michaelwinter742]

Fantastic!

[@DwarkeshPatel]

This is an amazing video explanation. Thank you!

[@firstmkb]

In the series of security badge photos Feynman is the only one smiling! Why does that not surprise me?

[@williamallen7836]

That was likely one of his first acts of rebellion against authority on the project. He did enjoy messing with those in positions of authority.

[@joshjones3408]

Most have it backwards it was a ring shot down the barrel over a round pice that was mechend for the ring to over perfect....👍👍👍great video 👍👍👍

[@glenbirbeck4098]

The audio needs work. Great content otherwise so record again with improved sound and upload.

[@wagsman9999]

Fascinating!

[@OpenGL4ever]

But why did they use Cadmium for the RaLa Experiment? Why not a different material?

[@AndrewBrowner]

have me volume pegged and can barely make you out... every other youtube video i run at 30-50% volume

[@65gtotrips]

2 Billion dollars in 1944-45 is equivalent to about 34 Billion in 2023.

[@Dev-In-Denver123]

WooOAAHHhh. Lol. That's nothing to America then or now. Absolutely nothing. We've given almost 3x that to Ukraine in 12 months. That's 12 30 day chunks. Almost nothing.

[@ianmcgeehan4627]

One billion of it was used to construct the oak ridge buildings.

[@Dilbert-o5k]

Apparently the development of the B29 to carry the bombs cost more than the Manhattan project.

[@babuzzard6470]

Good clip but why does it sound like you’re in the dunny?

[@rozza2012]

As soon as the gun barrel problem emerged I would have immediately thought of firing two or more plutonium shaped charges at each other or a plutonium pit. The pit could be inside of neutron reflective sphere likely beryllium. Hell let's suspend the pit in a beryllium sphere with a deuterium hydrogen based solid foam for good measure, synthetic rubber would work fine. The liquid metal plutonium jets would pierce the beryllium sphere & foam at 1/2 lamb's tail shake speed, 3000 meter per second+ in a compact bomb form.

[@davidh9844]

The speed needed to be obtained by a plutonium bullet to overcome the time inside predetonation zone would have required something like a 20-30 foot barrel. No American aircraft was large enough to carry a device of this size and weight. The British had a bomber - I believe it was the Lancaster bomber - that was long enough, but it didn't have the range necessary to deliver the device.

[@adamchurvis1]

The Communist Chinese developed their own version of this known as "MaLa." It was numbingly spicy on the palate, and then it was like a HUGE explosion of flavor.

[@jeffmiller6954]

in the first few seconds i think we get some footage of richard feynman -- did anyone else notice this?

[@AlanNathan-pobguy]

Yes, I caught that too

[@williamallen7836]

Yes. Have you ever listened to his lectures about his time on the project? If you haven't you should. It's very entertaining, and informative.

[@robertbolding4182]

Same time the b-29 project cost 3 billion dollars. Never going to be told this but you have a right to know.

[@craigwall9536]

Geez. *Everybody* knows that.

[@williamallen7836]

Exactly who was hiding this fact? Lookup any information about the development of the B-29, and one of the first things mentioned is the cost of it's development. Maybe you should demand a refund on your education. Your teachers apparently failed you when it comes to how to read & how to research basic topics.

[@PacoOtis]

Slow down! You got a bus to catch? LOL

[@morrisschwarts4826]

LOUDER FOR US POOR PEOPLE IN THE CHEAP SEATS!!

[@goutvols103]

Was the real reason that there were two (2) different types of bombs was because if the original design did not work then the second one, of the same design, would be suspect?

[@craigwall9536]

No. A clean miss. Read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes.

[@GoetzimRegen]

They had help from U234 or the Demon Core Experiments should happen before the first real test or you found enough working bombs somewhere or parts of it. Or the demon core should have been one of the next steps, before the first real test.

[@OpenGL4ever]

No, when the design bomb with the uranium was designed, they already knew exactly that it would work. The problem was isotope separation and thus obtaining enough uranium 235. There was only enough uranium 235 for a single bomb, the one, that was dropped on Hiroshima. Another bomb would have required additional months (AFAIK 12 to 18 months) or more money would have to been invested in isotope separation. The isotope separation did cost more than half of the total money for the Manhattan project, thus it was not really an option. The reason for the plutonium route and therefore the implosion bomb was because it allowed them to build lots of bombs much more quickly. Japan hasn't given up yet after dropping Little Boy on Hiroshima. This only happened after the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. However, this was only possible through the implosion design using plutonium. In fact, two bombs of this type were detonated by the end of August 1945, the bomb on Nagasaki and the Trinity Test a couple of months earlier, which was necessary to test the implosion bomb in the first place. From this alone you can see that you can build many more and faster bombs from the implosion bomb using Plutonium.

[@andrewsmart2949]

if kammler had defected to another country america would have been lucky to even make 1 uranium bomb LOL

[@Monothefox]

Is the intro music the first bars of the Dance Macabre?

[@CanadianMacGyver]

Yes it is :).

[@Monothefox]

@@CanadianMacGyver fitting!

[@troyallen8223]

Damn 254 test? That's insane

[@agranero6]

Why all pictures from IDs of Los Alamos scientists look like mugshots?

[@williamallen7836]

They were taken when the very remote facility was still rather primitive, and almost entirely run by the military. They were concerned with an ID that did the job with least effort needed, not with conducting a fashion photo shoot.

[@agranero6]

@@williamallen7836 Still their faces show many were far from happy...

[@MikesTropicalTech]

Oh good, 2142 isn't that far away!

[@robertgift]

Please redo the sound and eliminate thecho.

[@jameshaxby5434]

So what would happen if you imploded a solid sphere of non-nuclear metal ?

[@terrywilder9]

See Stanislav Adamenko's relativistic Vacuum Diode, when you can create implosions several orders of magnitude greater than you can with conventional explosives as done here!

[@davidh9844]

It would get VERY hot! And probably explode outward.

[@OpenGL4ever]

You could create diamonds if you use carbon as material.

[@NichoFilm]

It would get smaller. For a short amount of time.

[@JeffMTX]

Cerium 140?

[@Tadesan]

It’s neat hearing about when America did great things. Those people were so lucky.

[@skataskatata9236]

not sure mass death is "great"

[@archlich4489]

We're not done. 🔬🔭📡💫🤙

[@davidcrocker4276]

If Lying Trump gets re-elected, we're done for sure.@@archlich4489

[@davidh9844]

Amazing what happens when you teach with academic standards in mind, and you don't give participation awards for attending high school and actually expect college level work to be done in college. People with degrees in Lesbian Literature of the 21st Century aren't going to get hired to design nuclear weapons anytime soon.

[@NichoFilm]

@@archlich4489 Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, the extermination of the Palestinians - what do you have in mind next?

[@timwerner7771]

Excellent content!! Thank you! However the audio is terrible with a strange reverb/echo thing. Can you get a microphone for the next one?

[@egay86292]

cold-blooded.

[@tombouie]

Amazing & over my head, It seems once you have the fissional material, it's just getting the density of it high enough to go super duper critical or something like that. On another subject, I wonder could a spherical explosion (aka exposive lens) can make diamonds on the cheap.

[@tombouie]

@@retiredbore378 Alright thks; But are you sure industrial level diamonds (ex: for grinding) can't be produced to via same type of simple sysmetrica/opposing shaped-charges. Shaped Charge kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpqVfKdqedmImrs

[@vladdumitrica849]

​@@retiredbore378Today, diamonds are grown under extremely low pressure.

[@davidh9844]

There are much better ways to make synthetic diamonds, both industrial quality and gemstone quality. Sadly, my wife doesn't like diamonds, and I do, and a good synthetic is about the quarter the price of a natural crystal. I can afford blue and pink diamonds, and she doesn't want them!

[@tombouie]

​@@davidh9844 Hmmmm .... ; You're quite a lucky guy for having such a wife (& I envy you). Oh, ?where can I get some of those synthetic diamonds at the quarter the price of a natural crystal? (some wants'm real bad ;)

[@earthstewardude]

The employees all lost their teeth and hair within six months?

[@Ansset0]

Audio quality is mid 1990s 🤮🤮

[@LaPabst]

At least it's human, the AI narratives stink!

[@emiliodesalvo7024]

Enrico Fermi's wife was Jewish, Emilio Segrè was Jewish, Bruno Rossi was Jewish, they all fled to the US, and they built the weapon that defeated Japan.

[@NichoFilm]

What are you suggesting the Jews had against the Japanese? Many great German scientists were Jewish for educational reasons of their culture and they left Germany when Hitler and his fascists made life uncomfortable for them and they were unable to work. Simples.

[@AldoSchmedack]

Thank you to our allies England and the commonwealth whom, without them, we all would not have bombs and protection from our blood thirsty adversaries! We would all not be here without each other. Long live English, commonwealth and American relations! Cheers to you all! From USA! 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺🇬🇧

[@williamallen7836]

Finally someone who gets it, instead of posting a bitter diatribe about how thier favorite scientist(s) wasn't mention.

[@TheGrindcorps]

You should really thank the USSR who saved us from Nazism and a global American dictatorship!

[@dougthomson5544]

Hmmm … interesting, but an incredibly sad story about human self-destructive insanity.

[@goutvols103]

Just imagine if the US had not developed the atomic weapons first and say Germany had.

[@dougthomson5544]

@@goutvols103 Indeed you are right and underline my point, this is a tragic human flaw.

[@markrix]

I want a cool letter & number alias

[@litestuffllc7249]

Correction 1. The Chicago Pile 1 was a total joke and failure using 40 tons of Uranium ore to produce 1/2 watt (claimed - probably a lie). Pile 1 had zero to do with the Abomb; Fermi had no idea of U235's critial value in low speed neutron fission. The only thing Pile 1 proved is Uranium ore was useless in producing a reactor. In 1940 two Germans working in England Peierls and Frisch deterimed that about 1 lb of pure U235 would create a critical mass; they calculated the yeilds of several U235 masses and physical size of the critical masses. This was the Abomb design. The British started a bomb project then but knew they did not have the capacity to carry it out. They kept it secret until 1942 when they revealed the information to the USA which started the Manhatten project. Until then no American or Danish or any others knew of the critial role of U235; a fact you completely miss and totally fail to properly attribute. Given such a failing you should remove this video, redo it correctly. Fermi remained ignorant of the role of U235 until 1944 when he was brought into the Manhatten project after all major work was already done. The key effort of the Manhatten project was refining U235 for fission; only refined U235 allowed for the first actual reactors at Oak Ridge and Hanford to be built that actually put out nuclear power; these made the creation of Plutonium possible and it was a functional substitute for U235 which could be more easily extracted chemically as determined by E Lawrence. This leads to correction 2; You can't even attempt Plutonium without U235 first in order to have the a nuclear reactor; you totally fail to mention that. It is impossible to do Plutonium production "in parrallel" to U235; you have to do the U235 first. Plutonium 240 could have been separated out; but it would have been too wasteful in time and money; so they opted to instead take advantage of the highly fissile nature of 240; you incorrectly say it couldn't have been done. Brings up Correction 3 and most notable really; the project didn't have to "start from scratch" at all .. they already had the U235 bomb and were making more. Only the Plutonium bomb design had to be changed to take advantage of the highly fissile nature of Pl 240. They could have removed the U240 but the cost in time and money wouldn't be intelligent to do if you could make a bomb that incorporated the U240; this isn't starting Plutonium production from scratch; it is only making a change to the bomb design. Thus your dramatic assertion the entire project had to be started from scatch is false. It was intelligent that the problem was discovered in advance and that a change to the design was possible and executed but it wasn't close to a total restart to the project which is what you assert. The practicality of the Abomb was not in question they already had the U235 bomb; and the statement that no more could be produced "in time" is false - what time? You could already bomb Hiroshima; who cares if it took another month to bomb Nagisake or even if they had to delay the bombings 6 months.. a stupid false statement. What if plutonium bombs didn't work then they'd stop making U235 bombs, and later hydrogen bombs? Total BS and underscores the need for a total re edit of your video to make it even close to reflective of reality. You spend half the video focused onimplosion as if it was critical to anything - it wasn't; it was very useful to fixing the Plutonium bomb design; but not at all critical to anything; if the US couldn't have used Plutonium; they would have used U235 bombs. Even if there was some time set by some god that Hiroshima and Nagisaki had to be bombed by tme x - they simply could have made two smaller bombs out of the 35lbs of U235 they already had. The 35 lbs of U235 is not a minimum for an Abomb; about 1 lb is the minimum; 35 lbs was used to achieve an impressive blast they felt had sufficient margin of error - two 17.5 lb bombs would have worked.

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

What in the world are you talking about? The Fermi Pile was not mentioned in this video and it is obvious that you have no knowledge of physics. You are embarrassing yourself.

[@craigwall9536]

Ever heard of a PARAGRAPH? Your text is unreadable.

[@channelview8854]

Most of your assertions are contrary to how the narrative is generally told. But then, I wasn't there so who knows?

[@OpenGL4ever]

As far as I know, you can do nuclear fission with natural uranium in a nuclear reactor if you use graphite as a moderator. And btw. you should make use of paragraph. They are a great invention, they are comparable to spaces.

[@litestuffllc7249]

@@OpenGL4ever if you use a paragaph people can't see what you wrote here. No you can't use natural unrainium; this is what Chicago Pile 1 attempted they claimed 1 watt with 40 tons of Urainium. 1 watt, of course is a total joke, and the claim a fraud. They spent millions. The fact they had any moderator at all points ot the fact they thought they would have to moderate some real power; obviously totally wrong. They removed all the moderator and got nothing. Obviously the U238 will be way more moderator than you need. Fermi, Slizard and Einstien had no clue about U235. This was why it took Peierls and Frisch to identify it and unlock the key to fission; you need 20% to sustain a real nuclear reaction in a reactor. That is 30 times more than naturally found; which exactly why you must refine it . This was what the major efforts of the Manhatten project were; once you had high enough densities you could make a reactor, you can make a bomb or you can make Plutonium. If they didn't have to refine it to at least that level;they wouldn't have.

[@majikglustik9704]

🔑

[@tigertiger1699]

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@Kujien]

Such insane levels of genius to create something so evil. Ironic and sad

[@LeonAust]

Saved my father's life in WW2, but could end this world in the future.

[@craigwall9536]

Would you rather the Nazi got it first?

[@normanczerski5221]

Implosion was unnecessary as a thin lead shield placed just in front of the forward sub critical mass could be shattered by the second fired mass on it's way to the first mass retarding critical mass until the masses merged thus, implosion was not needed.

[@TheDavidlloydjones]

The "deceptively simple" design as stated at 2:40 is incorrect. No charge was fired down a barrel "into" another. One charge was fired *around* the other, and FWIW it was fired along the edges off the barrel.

[@CanadianMacGyver]

I am aware that the diagram is simplified; this was deliberate as the focus of the video is on the implosion method, not the gun-type method. As the total uranium mass comprised more than one critical mass, one of the two components had to be made hollow to avoid premature criticality by shape. It also had to be kept as far away from the tamper as possible to prevent neutrons from being reflected back into the mass before assembly - dictating that it be made the projectile rather than the target. But these are highly-specific technical details; for the purposes of the video the basic principle is still the same.

[@OpenGL4ever]

Do you mean that each uranium mass was accelerated on their side and then they met in the middle? Or do you mean that a circular uranium mass was shot over a static uranium cylinder? I've heard the latter several times, but I don't know the reason why. I would like to know that.

[@RobCCTV]

Er, um... shouldn't this information be SECRET?

[@craigwall9536]

Er, um...NO. Because everyone besides you can easily figure it out ONCE they know it CAN be done.

[@basroos_snafu]

Please be aware that the audible part of video is half of the experience, despite half of all the other content creators completely ignoring this fact.

[@peterwright4224]

Nice try if it wasn't for the patent for the trigatron being in the name Von Weitsaker. Fact is through high speed camera shots the team failed to achieve simoultainious detonation up untill von Weitsakers help the problem of symoultainoius detonation was tried only with parallel detonators which did not work. As I personaly read in the Moscow archives the allies ran to erfurt tosecure the 5 german gun type atomic weapons that the family vonhohenzollen had secured away from the nazis. If you wonder at the extreemly sparce information about little boy I the national archive this has a very simple reason , the bomb dropped on hiroshima was a german one not american, why 2 bombs ? To compair german abomb technology to american its that simple. Every attempt at making this public in the west has failed, the best one being the 2 scientists who proved without doubt that an atomic weapons test in Ohrdruf had taken place one from heidelberg geology finding micro diamonds and the other from the PTB in Brownschweig atomic physics who documented man made radioactive isotopes. Both were forced to retract their papers by the german government under threat of loosing pension rights as well as being called officialy neonazis. The reactor at hagerloch was harmless its the 2 underground ones run by the university of Tubingen that have been removed from history . Both sites to this very day are guarded by geophones installed ine 50s if you try digging the police appear as if by magic till this very day I know personaly someone who was caught, I have seen personaly the geophone amplifier Box connected to telephone lines. It's camouflaged as part of the nationalseismic monitoring network and the sensors are buried, all other sensors in Germany are 3 axis mems sensors installed in buildings in cellars " Nachtegal ich höre dich trapsen" 😅 Please do not forget the history of ww2 is written by the allies !

[@NichoFilm]

So where did they refine their uranium?

[@charliefoxtrot5001]

Nice little fiction you wrote there. By the way, your German spelling is quire off.

[@dumptrump3788]

Another video on the Mahatten Project. Another boast about how it only took 3 years. Another video that fails to mention the massive amount of information handed over by Britain from the MAUD & Tube Alloys projects before the Manhatten Project had even begun.

[@5roundsrapid263]

The one scientist the British sent over, Klaus Fuchs, was the one who gave the plans to the USSR.

[@gregculverwell]

Americans are always the heroes, irrespective of the facts.

[@goutvols103]

@@gregculverwell The British agreed to provide all of their research to the US because of the UK being susceptible to German bombing. As well, only the US had the aircraft capable of delivering the bombs.

[@gregculverwell]

@@goutvols103 I think main reason was that Britain simply did not have the resources to go it alone. It required an enormous amount of money, space and people.

[@davidgold5961]

It’s spelled MANHATTAN.

[@imtheonevanhalen1557]

So secret that Stalin knew....lol.......

[@gastonbell108]

Audio is so low I can't hear it. Too bad, looked interesting. Didn't you realize when your intro music was 400% louder than your voice-over?

[@Benzyl]

A lot of quiet videos on KZbin at the moment but this one was fine. But you would think that people check before posting?

[@vitorgeraldes7054]

They look like criminals in the photos! And indeed they were, for liberating these dark forces of nature...

[@K-Effect]

I think you could’ve given Japan $2 billion and they would’ve surrendered

[@goutvols103]

Really, that is quite a statement without foundation.

[@K-Effect]

@@goutvols103 and?

[@Bhatt_Hole]

Could he not afford a decent mic for this narration?

[@Jagdtyger2A]

While this was being done, the Nazis were developing a two point ignition "swan device" type nuclear weapon which required much less fissile material. We didn't make one of these much later after WWII ended

[@LeonAust]

🤣