[ RadSafe ] Japanese Nuclear Effort (WW II)

[John Jacobus]

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_atomic_program

Apparently, Japan did have 4 cyclotrons, but the only
one I remember orginally reading about was the one
built by Nishima in Tokyo which was destroyed in May
1945. 
http://www2.nbc-nagasaki.co.jp/peace/voices/en-no20.html

Also,
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/


By the way, there a number of documents about the
atomic bombing at 
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB162/index.htm

--- JPreisig at aol.com wrote:

> 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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+++++++++++++++++++
““Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”
-- Benjamin Franklin, circa 1750, on German immigration to Pennsylvania

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com


       
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