Transcripts For CSPAN3 Jon 20240704 : vimarsana.com

Scientists, engineers or military and the civilians who worked on the atomic bomb project in los alamos. Humans back to ancient greece have been wanting to split atom. Theyve talked about it in this individual able part of of matter. And so thats a concept that had been around for a while but humans still havent seen an atom i its so small we havent seen it there wasnt until the end of the 19th century that scientists started being able to tinker with doing things, smashing things together and kind of figuring out what came out kind of like you smash a car together and the carburetor comes out and not knowing what carburetor is. You go. We know that something in the car, but we dont know. So thats kind of in a very basic way what atomic physics was about. But then in 1938, two german physicists working berlin, strassman and hahn bombarded, this lump of material called your cranium, and they got a curious result. It kind of released a lot of heat. And then it created a different element that was further down on the on the on the you the element table table of elements the word about this spread through the Nuclear World like a like a forest fire that that that scientist had the atom and that it was scientists working in nazi that had split the atom. So there was a lot of knowledge that the germans had split the atom, that was working on their own, splitting of the atom and harnessing that into a military weapon. But it wasnt until after pearl harbor that then the Manhattan Project was created and then a lot of resource is under the control of army corps of engineer was devoted to create this this new weapon. So Leslie Groves was appointed the head of the Manhattan Project, and he had just finished building the pentagon. Groves talked to different physics and asked people who would be a good leader and oppenheimer probably was not high on the list, actually, oppenheimer had not even been charge of his Physics Department at berkeley. He was chosen to be the head of the central laboratory. But there was something about oppie that that groves . I think a couple of things groves saw that he was hungry. There were nobel Prize Winners were being considered, but they had already accomplished the nobel prize. Groves wanted somebody who was hungrier and would would maybe work a little bit harder. And also on train trip across the country oppie was to describe to groves what was needed to be done in terms that groves and a layman could understand so so picked up. The other thing was where to locate the central laboratory. You couldnt have it in chicago because what happens if an accident happened or also would be easy to to breach the top with you know youre walking down a street involved in it a colleague who wasnt involved came up said, hey, joe, what are you doing . Well, i mean, that you there would there would be an easy way to top secret top secrecy on that. So so they looked around. They picked some places in the west. Oppie had come to new mexico to recover from an illness when was 18 years old and had fallen in love with new mexico. At one point he said that he he wished he could marry the two loves of his life. Physics in new mexico. Of course, thats before got married. I just want to be clear about that and. And this was an opportunity for him to do that. So he showed groves some places around new and they settled on this boys school at los alamos and after that was chosen in november of 1942. Oppie recruiting people. But he couldnt tell them what he was doing. He said, you know, i would like you to join me on this project, but i cant really tell you what youre going to be doing but youre going to be in a beautiful place. Its going to be essential for the war effort. And people who knew oppie of knew what they knew the work that was being done in germany. They knew that this was going to be something that was going to be so. So a lot of people did sign on. They were given an address in santa fe to report to. They went to 109 east palace address right near, the plaza in santa fe and then were told youre not quite there, just another 40 miles. Heres your temporary security pass to get into los alamos. And so they got in there. Scientists assembled in march of 1943. They they decided that there were they to do multiple ways of trying make this weapon. And part of the problem was Nuclear Material, the uranium or plutonium. It was it was minuscule. There was some plutonium is totally manmade. And so a reactor in hanford, washington, was created to then manufacture this plutonium, uranium, it is is naturally made. But part thats used for bombs. So only about 1 of what occurs in in nature. So how do you refine that . How do you extract that 1 out . And thats why Big Industrial complex at oak ridge was made to kind of separate this isotope of uranium from the rest of it and then assemble it. So in a big enough quantity that it could be used for bomb. So part of the delay was the material was a radioactive the Nuclear Material part of it was trying to figure out how to assemble this into a bomb. And there were two different ways. One was a gun assembly bomb and that took uranium. And one part of the bomb uranium and part of the bomb had high explosives behind it. Its kind of like a bullet. So this bullet of uranium was shot into this bigger mass of uranium. Uranium, uranium 235 and that then caused a Chain Reaction that exploded and and with a huge detonation that was a Pretty Simple technique or a simple idea. It was actually so simple that they didnt to test it. That was the bomb that was dropped, hiroshima. But they were so sure that that was going to work. They didnt field test it. The plutonium bombs a little bit different. They tried to do gun assembly with plutonium, but it kind of as soon as it got shot just kind of fell apart. So it never got to the other lump of plutonium. So what they came up with was this idea of implosion so you have this pit of plutonium about the size of a softball or, a grapefruit around it. You have explosives, you detonate conventional explosives all within the same millisecond so that the shockwave that comes the core compresses, the plutonium into into a tighter and tighter mass. And thats then when you get the Chain Reaction and the splitting of the protein, it plateaued in atoms and the release of of of of of an explosion that the scientists werent so sure would work because. Its tricky if the explosive moves conventional explosives arrive at the core just a little bit before other shockwave. Then it would just blow the plutonium out. So it has to it had to be coordinated. Thats the one they tested at trinity site, about 200 miles southeast of alamos on july 16th, 1945, at about 530 in the morning. Oppie later thought of a phrase from the bhagavad, the holy book of of hinduism that now i am a destroyer of worlds, now i am death destroyer of worlds. Just to put this in perspective that one bomb, when it was dropped over, japan had the expel of and destructive equivalent of 2000 of our biggest bombers used in the war, fully loaded so would have to be 2000 of those bombers fully loaded, dropping all of their loads to the destructive power of one atomic weapon. Oppenheimer felt about his work. The Manhattan Project in. I think a kind of complicated way, and i think he had some mixed feelings of. The fact that he did create this weapon of mass destruction. But on the other hand, he ended the war. Now, i dont think the atomic weapons, the war the war was already it was won by the United Military and our allies. It was won by the home front and the people working in the factories and a lot of people won the war. But the war ended in august of 1945 because of the atomic bomb and. I think oppie realized this and took some pride in the fact that even though it a horrendous weapon possibly some lives were saved because of the use of it as deadly as the weapon was a Home Invasion of or an invasion of the home islands of japan probably would have created more casualties. Thats something that historians well never know the answer. But i think also felt somewhat bad about late in life in the 1960s as he and wife kitty visited japan and a journalist said. Well, how do you feel about your work in developing this weapon that was used on japan . Do you feel bad about it . And his reply was, its not that i i dont feel bad about it. I dont feel worse about it tonight than i did last night by time the 1950s rolled around, he started concerned about the arms race between United States and the soviet union. He started feeling it. And when one article in Foreign Affairs he said its like theres two scorpions in a bottle and and theyre going to kill other. He also worried about the effect of secrecy on our democracy, and he became more more vocal vocal questioning the Nuclear Policies of the country. But he was influential he was on the General Committee that were the committee that advised the Atomic Energy committee. So so so there and and he had made some enemies along the way. In fact, j. Edgar hoover had put him even before World War Two on a list to be detained in case of a National Emergency as a suspicious person. Oppenheimer, in the 1930s had participated in left wing activities. His wife, kitty, was a communist party. His brother, his sister in law were communist party members. So hoover thought that he was a communist party member. Thats been proven. But but he was left leaning louis straus, who was the director of the Atomic Energy commission. In 1953, didnt like oppie, partly for just kind of petty personal reasons teller Edward Teller didnt like oppie because teller thought he should have been appointed the head of the Theoretical Division and lo said not better. There are these people that kind got together in the early fifties to take down r. P. And some of it was for petty reasons. Some of it was for security reasons. Maybe he was connected with the soviet union, but also i think its because we as a country had come to a in the road and. Oppie was saying maybe we should be rethinking this fork, that were going down in nuclear weapons. Maybe we should go a different way and in december of 1953, a report was given to president eisenhower here saying more probably than not, oppenheimer was a soviet spy. So so course ike then created a wall around r. B. Oppenheim, who still had his top security clearance. So what to do about that a couple of days before christmas in 1953, louis straws had come into his office and say, you know, there is this report about you and were going to have to remove top security clearance. And you can either go quietly and nobody will know or we can have a hearing. But this was in a way, a public humiliation, and it was supposed to be secret soon after it ended, the 997 page transcript was released to two newspe. It was made public so that everybody heard whatad happened. Oppenheimer and that they didnt have approved. He was a security. Theres the second charge against him was that he advocated against the bomb, and he did say that Hydrogen Bomb was atomic bombs are powerful enough. I mean, Hydrogen Bombs are a thousand times more powerful than whats dropped. What was dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki. So oppie was against the hydrogen. Did he try to cordon any scientists not working on it. That was the charge. He might have talked. Some people saying that atomic bombs are powerful enough and we dont need to unleash a thousand times more powerful bombs. But nonetheless in a public humility 18 way, his top security clearance yanked newspapers across. The country had front page articles about this. And so he went from 45 being this hero that ended world. War 2 to 1954, being villain that maybe was a was a communist spy. So when oppenheimer Nuclear Physics west to berkeley and caltech and to new mexico he changed particularly new mexico into what had been a very poor part the country that actually even today some people dont know that new mexico is part of the United States. They think its part of mexico. I mean i get that all the time. Oh, you have much of an accent. Its because im from the United States. When i when i say im from new mexico. But but it brought this this state that was poor had, very little infrastructure and put in the middle of it this federally funded facility that just transformed the state it brought good paying jobs. I mentioned the the engineers, the military who came to los alamos but also for during the Manhattan Project in. Then afterwards a lot of local people in new mexico got wellpaid jobs at the laboratories, so it transformed the i mean, the 1960s, the peace corps sent volunteers to new mexico train before they sent them down into latin america. Now, los alamos is one of the most prosperous counties in the in the country. They say there that they have the highest per number of phds, the country in their in their so so its its transformed the theres a lot of spinoffs that come from research Nuclear Physics that then people decide they dont want to work in los alamos start their own businesses. And then so theres a kind of ripple throughout northern new mexico and into albuquerque of people who have high tech jobs, come up with a good idea and then spin them off for their own for their own businesses. So it took this state that in the in the kind of the backwaters of the country and not well known unless unless you were a tourist and came through and saw the beautiful landscapes and and the interesting cultures of mexico and made more mainstream. So what lessons do we from oppenheimer we still refer to the a massive to use science and government and business to come up with a solution of of the worlds problems. We say what we need to we need to do a Manhattan Project on this so so we still have that in the back of our minds that there is this almost impossible that was accomplished by dedicated people working hard to come up with something that nobody else had ever done before. So we still take lessons that and from oppenheimers leadership in that. Whether its mixed legacy partly its a mixed legacy because of close partly its a mixed legacy because the Nuclear Power plant accidents that have happened, fukushima has chernobyl, three mile island, partly its a mixed legacy because of the divided opinion of of the public, of looking at people who work at los alamos as either saviors of our democracy or shadowy figures who have their fingers on on an armageddon. I mean its its a its a complicated thing to to try to wrap your head around and in lot of times its theresmembers ofs of the philosophical society. But you have good reason to wish to hear from me today. What circumstances have perhaps qu