[ RadSafe ] Japanese Nuclear Effort (WW II)

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Dear Radsafe:

     This is from:    jpreisig at aol.com    .

      Howdy Radsafers:

             John Jocobus posts an e-mail saying the Japanese nuclear (bomb
making) effort was rather small, consisting of one cyclotron, with limited
uranium on hand.  Was the cyclotron in Hiroshima or Nagasaki???

             When we last left this story on radsafe (see the archives) the 
American
Military had taken over Heisenberg's Laboratory (according to the US History
Channel --- TV) and had found a reactor there and considerable amounts of
refined Uranium (but not enriched).  Clearly such a reactor could be used
to make Plutonium or could be used to make heavy water into tritium.

            The USA had significant nuclear facilities (Los Alamos and Oak 
Ridge)
and the effort was not small at all.  I believe the USA had some cyclotrons
and a Calutron at Oak Ridge.  The Calutron had large beam pipes,
presumably using electromagnets or regular magnets for turning the beam
of ions or perhaps for focusing the beam crudely.  I don't think the
concept of strong focusing (or alternating gradients of magnets) had been 
invented as of 1945.  See the book by Livingston and Blewett and the Nuclear
Physics books by Kaplan and/or Segre.  Strong focusing was invented
at Brookhaven Lab, I believe, and was also discovered independently by
another scientist.  With such focusing, accelerator beam pipes can be 
much smaller than that used in the Calutron or Cosmotron, and accelerator 
beam focusing is much improved.

     Next, in the WWII nuclear story, the Germans were shipping enough
elemental Uranium (to Japan) to make about one or two fission devices.
The Uranium was being shipped by boat or submarine; I don't recall which.
The boat or submarine was destroyed by the allies, and thus endeth the
German/Japanese nuclear effort.  Clearly the elemental Uranium was being
shipped to Japan so that Uranium enrichment could take place in Japan's
cyclotron.  Clearly with one cyclotron, enrichment would have taken a
while.

      So, that's the story, as I see it.  Your comments and/or corrections
are welcome.

      In another story,  a Hurricane is bearing down on the Hawaiian Islands.
The big island had a 5.3 (not too big) earthquake in the last few days.
Will lava start to flow out of the volcanoes soon???  Could a hurricane "lift"
lava flowing down the side of a volcano???  Sounds very nasty to me.
I wish the Hawaiian people well in this storm.

     I was born in 1955!!!! (After WW II).

     Have a great week!!!


     Regards,       Joseph R. (Joe) Preisig, Ph.D.


<BR><BR>**************************************<BR> Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at 
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour</HTML>