[ RadSafe ] Japanese Nuclear Effort (WW II)

[John R Johnson]

Howdy Joe.

You say "The USA had significant nuclear facilities (Los Alamos and Oak 
Ridge) and the effort was not small at all."

I agree but didn't Hanford also have a significant effort. When I worked at 
PNL (now PNNL) in the late eighties  I met a person (now retired) that "rode 
shotgun" for Pu going from Hanford to Los Almos.

John
***************
John R Johnson, PhD
CEO, IDIAS, Inc.
Vancouver, B. C.
Canada
(604) 222-9840
idias at interchange.ubc.ca

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <JPreisig at aol.com>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 4:55 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Japanese Nuclear Effort (WW II)


> 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>
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