The RaLa Experiment: Key to the Atomic Bomb

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The Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to build the first atomic bomb, was one of the most astonishing scientific and technical undertakings in history. But two years and billions of dollars in, an alarming discovery threatened to derail the project entirely, and the feasibility of the atomic bomb came to rest on a single experiment codenamed RaLa.

Пікірлер: 224

  • @mskellyrlv
    @mskellyrlv7 ай бұрын

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

  • @msimon6808

    @msimon6808

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @RTD1947
    @RTD19478 ай бұрын

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

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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

    @RTD1947

    3 ай бұрын

    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

    @tigertiger1699

    9 күн бұрын

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

  • @LolUGotBusted
    @LolUGotBusted8 ай бұрын

    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

    @animalntelligence3170

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @malectric

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @Bialy_1

    6 ай бұрын

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

  • @malectric

    @malectric

    6 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @Motoguzzi750

    6 ай бұрын

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

  • @inyobill
    @inyobill8 ай бұрын

    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

    @channelview8854

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @terrywilder9

    @terrywilder9

    6 ай бұрын

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

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    ​@@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.

  • @nigeldepledge3790
    @nigeldepledge37908 ай бұрын

    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

    @unclenogbad1509

    8 ай бұрын

    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

    @james6401

    7 ай бұрын

    "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."

  • @DwarkeshPatel
    @DwarkeshPatel2 жыл бұрын

    This is an amazing video explanation. Thank you!

  • @SJR_Media_Group
    @SJR_Media_Group8 ай бұрын

    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

    @NormReitzel

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @SoylentGamer
    @SoylentGamer8 ай бұрын

    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

    @michelmeijer4509

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @malectric

    6 ай бұрын

    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

    @michelmeijer4509

    6 ай бұрын

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

  • @charlesachurch7265
    @charlesachurch72658 ай бұрын

    Fascinating presentation thanks xxx

  • @kennethng8346
    @kennethng83468 ай бұрын

    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

    @malectric

    6 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @rickhibdon11
    @rickhibdon117 ай бұрын

    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

    @tigertiger1699

    9 күн бұрын

    🙏🙏🙏🙏

  • @nickpn23
    @nickpn233 жыл бұрын

    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

    @TimPerfetto

    2 жыл бұрын

    You're welcome

  • @TheExplosiveGuy

    @TheExplosiveGuy

    2 жыл бұрын

    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

    @TheDavidlloydjones

    8 ай бұрын

    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 KZread work.

  • @user-fe9qi1ic1r

    @user-fe9qi1ic1r

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @137bob3d

    @137bob3d

    8 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @RS0593
    @RS05938 ай бұрын

    Thank you!

  • @joshuaburdette5531
    @joshuaburdette55312 ай бұрын

    Enjoyed this. Thanks.

  • @fjs1111
    @fjs11118 ай бұрын

    Good work my friend

  • @fredstevens129
    @fredstevens1298 ай бұрын

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

  • @airdaleva42
    @airdaleva424 ай бұрын

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

  • @johndonaldson3619
    @johndonaldson36193 жыл бұрын

    A little gem of a story - thank you!

  • @Desert-edDave
    @Desert-edDave8 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @michaelwinter742
    @michaelwinter7422 жыл бұрын

    Fantastic!

  • @peterparsons7141
    @peterparsons71415 ай бұрын

    Terrific, well presented and very interesting.

  • @inzepinz
    @inzepinz3 жыл бұрын

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

  • @andrewnorgrove6487

    @andrewnorgrove6487

    8 ай бұрын

    England passed on the knowledge to build so called bombs

  • @jerrypolverino6025

    @jerrypolverino6025

    8 ай бұрын

    Engineering physics.

  • @wagsman9999
    @wagsman99997 ай бұрын

    Fascinating!

  • @ovalwingnut
    @ovalwingnut8 ай бұрын

    Very InTeReStiNg. Thank you...

  • @pop5678eye
    @pop5678eye5 ай бұрын

    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

    @dimitrigagnon1233

    Ай бұрын

    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.

  • @jimparsons6803
    @jimparsons68038 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @halweilbrenner9926

    @halweilbrenner9926

    8 ай бұрын

    Good 2 know

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

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

  • @211212112
    @2112121125 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @Neptunium
    @Neptunium3 жыл бұрын

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

  • @CanadianMacGyver

    @CanadianMacGyver

    3 жыл бұрын

    Thank you! If there are any other topics you'd like me to cover, you should check out my video topic/Q&A contest: kzread.info/dash/bejne/fa6iyZavd9argto.html. There are still a few days left to enter.

  • @msimon6808

    @msimon6808

    7 ай бұрын

    @@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"

  • @johno1544
    @johno15448 ай бұрын

    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

    @A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid

    8 ай бұрын

    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

    @johno1544

    8 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid

    8 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @johno1544

    8 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid

    8 ай бұрын

    @@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.

  • @sequoyah59
    @sequoyah597 ай бұрын

    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

    @davidh9844

    6 ай бұрын

    Help from the space aliens trying to get home.

  • @johntrottier1162

    @johntrottier1162

    6 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @robertsullivan4773
    @robertsullivan47737 ай бұрын

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

  • @msimon6808

    @msimon6808

    7 ай бұрын

    Your next assignment is switch debounce.

  • @jeanemery7576

    @jeanemery7576

    5 ай бұрын

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

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

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

  • @blobscott
    @blobscott6 ай бұрын

    That was one of the best explanations.

  • @96Shalom
    @96Shalom8 ай бұрын

    Brought here by Oppenheimer and wow, very informative video!

  • @brunonikodemski2420
    @brunonikodemski2420Ай бұрын

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

  • @troyallen8223
    @troyallen82238 ай бұрын

    Damn 254 test? That's insane

  • @davefellhoelter1343
    @davefellhoelter13437 ай бұрын

    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

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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

    @davefellhoelter1343

    3 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @65gtotrips
    @65gtotrips8 ай бұрын

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

  • @Dev-In-Denver123

    @Dev-In-Denver123

    8 ай бұрын

    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

    @ianmcgeehan4627

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @vxrdrummer
    @vxrdrummer3 жыл бұрын

    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

    @Smedley1947

    9 ай бұрын

    Far worse than glitter contamination.

  • @adammoss5284

    @adammoss5284

    8 ай бұрын

    Scintillating

  • @colinjohnson5515

    @colinjohnson5515

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @msimon6808

    7 ай бұрын

    @@adammoss5284 Thread winner.

  • @jeffmiller6954
    @jeffmiller69548 ай бұрын

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

  • @AlanNathan-pobguy

    @AlanNathan-pobguy

    7 ай бұрын

    Yes, I caught that too

  • @egay86292
    @egay862928 ай бұрын

    cold-blooded.

  • @firstmkb
    @firstmkb7 ай бұрын

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

  • @adamchurvis1
    @adamchurvis17 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @AndrewBrowner
    @AndrewBrowner8 ай бұрын

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

  • @joshjones3408
    @joshjones34088 ай бұрын

    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 👍👍👍

  • @goutvols103
    @goutvols1037 ай бұрын

    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

    @craigwall9536

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @GoetzimRegen

    @GoetzimRegen

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @AldoSchmedack
    @AldoSchmedack7 ай бұрын

    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! 🇺🇸🇨🇦🇦🇺🇬🇧

  • @tombouie
    @tombouie8 ай бұрын

    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

    @tombouie

    8 ай бұрын

    @@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 kzread.info/dash/bejne/fp1mrdZtdNe7lLw.html

  • @vladdumitrica849

    @vladdumitrica849

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @davidh9844

    @davidh9844

    6 ай бұрын

    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

    @tombouie

    6 ай бұрын

    ​@@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 ;)

  • @glenbirbeck4098
    @glenbirbeck4098 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @Monothefox
    @Monothefox3 жыл бұрын

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

  • @CanadianMacGyver

    @CanadianMacGyver

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yes it is :).

  • @Monothefox

    @Monothefox

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@CanadianMacGyver fitting!

  • @kinzieconrad105
    @kinzieconrad1055 ай бұрын

    Saved millions of lives!

  • @rozza2012
    @rozza20127 ай бұрын

    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

    @davidh9844

    6 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @OpenGL4ever
    @OpenGL4ever3 ай бұрын

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

  • @jameshaxby5434
    @jameshaxby54347 ай бұрын

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

  • @terrywilder9

    @terrywilder9

    7 ай бұрын

    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

    @davidh9844

    6 ай бұрын

    It would get VERY hot! And probably explode outward.

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    You could create diamonds if you use carbon as material.

  • @PacoOtis
    @PacoOtis7 ай бұрын

    Slow down! You got a bus to catch? LOL

  • @andrewsmart2949
    @andrewsmart29497 ай бұрын

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

  • @morrisschwarts4826
    @morrisschwarts48268 ай бұрын

    LOUDER FOR US POOR PEOPLE IN THE CHEAP SEATS!!

  • @agranero6
    @agranero67 ай бұрын

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

  • @majikglustik9704
    @majikglustik97048 ай бұрын

    🔑

  • @robertgift
    @robertgift7 ай бұрын

    Please redo the sound and eliminate thecho.

  • @litestuffllc7249
    @litestuffllc72498 ай бұрын

    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

    @Hopeless_and_Forlorn

    8 ай бұрын

    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

    @craigwall9536

    7 ай бұрын

    Ever heard of a PARAGRAPH? Your text is unreadable.

  • @channelview8854

    @channelview8854

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @OpenGL4ever

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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

    @litestuffllc7249

    3 ай бұрын

    @@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.

  • @Tadesan
    @Tadesan2 жыл бұрын

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

  • @skataskatata9236

    @skataskatata9236

    8 ай бұрын

    not sure mass death is "great"

  • @archlich4489

    @archlich4489

    8 ай бұрын

    We're not done. 🔬🔭📡💫🤙

  • @davidcrocker4276

    @davidcrocker4276

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @davidh9844

    @davidh9844

    6 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @tigertiger1699
    @tigertiger16999 күн бұрын

    🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

  • @dougthomson5544
    @dougthomson55448 ай бұрын

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

  • @goutvols103

    @goutvols103

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @dougthomson5544

    @dougthomson5544

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @Kujien
    @Kujien8 ай бұрын

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

  • @LeonAust

    @LeonAust

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @craigwall9536

    @craigwall9536

    7 ай бұрын

    Would you rather the Nazi got it first?

  • @robertbolding4182
    @robertbolding41827 ай бұрын

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

  • @craigwall9536

    @craigwall9536

    7 ай бұрын

    Geez. *Everybody* knows that.

  • @Bhatt_Hole
    @Bhatt_Hole6 ай бұрын

    Could he not afford a decent mic for this narration?

  • @basroos_snafu
    @basroos_snafu8 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @TheDavidlloydjones
    @TheDavidlloydjones8 ай бұрын

    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

    @CanadianMacGyver

    8 ай бұрын

    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

    @OpenGL4ever

    3 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @Ansset0
    @Ansset04 ай бұрын

    Audio quality is mid 1990s 🤮🤮

  • @Jagdtyger2A
    @Jagdtyger2A8 ай бұрын

    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

    @LeonAust

    7 ай бұрын

    🤣

  • @gastonbell108
    @gastonbell1088 ай бұрын

    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

    @Benzyl

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @normanczerski5221
    @normanczerski52218 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @RobCCTV
    @RobCCTV8 ай бұрын

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

  • @craigwall9536

    @craigwall9536

    7 ай бұрын

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

  • @imtheonevanhalen1557
    @imtheonevanhalen15577 ай бұрын

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

  • @K-Effect
    @K-Effect7 ай бұрын

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

  • @goutvols103

    @goutvols103

    7 ай бұрын

    Really, that is quite a statement without foundation.

  • @K-Effect

    @K-Effect

    7 ай бұрын

    @@goutvols103 and?

  • @perriannesimkhovitch1127
    @perriannesimkhovitch11278 ай бұрын

    One giant massive crystal 🔮 attempting to overthrow the spherical dominance of competing astronomical orbs takes off for 🚀🌌 displayed is the banner: Chernobyl and Fukushima 👞 Man's 🗑️🚮 united: we are cesium decaying nuclei and we want to live. Can your CERN help us?

  • @dumptrump3788
    @dumptrump37888 ай бұрын

    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

    @5roundsrapid263

    8 ай бұрын

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

  • @gregculverwell

    @gregculverwell

    7 ай бұрын

    Americans are always the heroes, irrespective of the facts.

  • @goutvols103

    @goutvols103

    7 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @gregculverwell

    7 ай бұрын

    @@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

    @davidgold5961

    7 ай бұрын

    It’s spelled MANHATTAN.

  • @kurtbogle2973
    @kurtbogle29738 ай бұрын

    The mad scientists didn't know if the reaction was going to be exclusive or inclusive. Had it been inclusive we would have experienced a Big Bang event! They did it anyway! Total iresponsibility !

  • @CanadianMacGyver

    @CanadianMacGyver

    8 ай бұрын

    By the time of the Trinity test, calculations by Hans Bethe and others had revealed that the chances of the detonation igniting the atmosphere were astronomically low; the energy of the blast would have dissipated too quickly via radiation to sustain an ongoing fusion reaction. The side bets that Enrico Fermi famously took just prior to the test were merely tongue-in-cheek.

  • @5roundsrapid263

    @5roundsrapid263

    8 ай бұрын

    They quickly realized the nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere was simply not dense enough to start a fusion reaction.

  • @BluesBoy-ij2rb

    @BluesBoy-ij2rb

    Ай бұрын

    ​@@CanadianMacGyver😊😊😊😅 10:02

  • @emilioughetto6716
    @emilioughetto67167 ай бұрын

    Ma quale sbarco sulla Luna!!!!!!!