Britains contribution to nuclear weapons

[ImageGear]

While I have read a number of books and watched several documentaries on this subject, I never really fully understood Britain's contribution to the early understanding and later, the Manhattan project.

I may be late to the party but I found this paper from the RAF Museum, a most absorbing read...

Maud Committee (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKOrigin.html)

Britain Nuclear Contribution (https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjNrYyEm-HXAhXiKMAKHZe9CY8QFggmMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rafmuseum.org.uk%2Fdocuments%2FResearc h%2FRAF-Historical-Society-Journals%2FJournal-26-Seminar-the-RAF-and-Nuclear-Weapons-1960-98.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3-8esjk1kzWuGteR-hktEQ)

Imagegear

[Chris Kebab]

Well that was a really interesting link - but one on aviation medicine not nuclear weapons:confused:

[ImageGear]

Sorry Chris, Stubby finger problem..

Fixed,

Image

[wiggy]

If by "early understanding" you mean the physics then the work prior to World War 2 was so multi national it is kind of hard to unravel which nation contributed what in the way of understanding....early on at at the start of it all you have the likes of Chadwick and Thomson, and I'm pretty sure a Brit, or Brit supplied (see below) explosives "expert" was heavily influential in the design and/or engineering of the Plutonium implosion weapon but darned if I can remember the name at the moment. IMHO the best primer is probably Richard Rhode's on work "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" but it's tough following all the nationalities.

Of course you also have to consider the influence of those Europeans who Britain sheltered prior to WW2 who went on to make significant contributions to the A bomb (e.g. Fuchs), and the H bomb (e.g err Fuchs....for both sides).

It's a complex bit of history, that's for sure.......Rhodes has done as good a job as anybody at depicting what went on...

[air pig]

If by "early understanding" you mean the physics then the work prior to World War 2 was so multi national it is kind of hard to unravel which nation contributed what in the way of understanding....early on at at the start of it all you have the likes of Chadwick and Thomson, and I'm pretty sure a Brit, or Brit supplied (see below) explosives "expert" was heavily influential in the design and/or engineering of the Plutonium implosion weapon but darned if I can remember the name at the moment. IMHO the best primer is probably Richard Rhode's on work "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" but it's tough following all the nationalities.

Of course you also have to consider the influence of those Europeans who Britain sheltered prior to WW2 who went on to make significant contributions to the A bomb (e.g. Fuchs), and the H bomb (e.g err Fuchs....for both sides).

It's a complex bit of history, that's for sure.......Rhodes has done as good a job as anybody at depicting what went on...

Don't forget the man who started it all, Sir Ernest Rutherford.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford

How he would have felt about the development of his discoveries is unkown obviously.

[ACW599]

It's a complex bit of history, that's for sure.......Rhodes has done as good a job as anybody at depicting what went on...

+1 for Richard Rhodes's book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". It's a wonderful synthesis of history, physics and engineering. He also wrote "Dark Sun" which is a history of the thermonuclear bomb and "Arsenals of Folly" about the post-war arms race and the end of the Cold War.

[wiggy]

Don't forget the man who started it all, Sir Ernest Rutherford.

I hadn't..but given the context of the thread didn't want to start an argument with any Kiwis....:}

[Basil]

'The Making of the Atomic Bomb'
Isn't that the highly readable book which describes Fermi's reactor with a bucket/buckets of cadmium something being held ready to chuck over it if it ran away?
Heroes or Darwin award candidates? ;)

p.s. ImageGear, thank you for those urls.

[NRU74]

[QUOTE
p.s. ImageGear, thank you for those urls.[/QUOTE]

Likewise from me! Interesting stuff !

[Rossian]

.....I tried googling "the making of the atom bomb" but all I got was a book by one Victoria Sherrow not the gent referred to here.

The Ancient Mariner

[Basil]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_Atomic_Bomb

The big South American river company sell it.

[Rossian]

.....I just did it again and keeps on with Victoria Sherrow

Hang on! I got to it by just putting his name alone. But it's a tad expensive for the kindle edition. I'll pass. But thanks for the tip.

The Ancient Mariner

[EricsLad]

Try and acquire the official histories - Britain and Atomic Energy 1939–1945 and Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy 1945–52.
Both were commissioned by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Margaret Gowing was involved with both.

[oxenos]

Rossian - you realise that as a result of your gargle search you are now at the top of Special Branch's watch list. Bang goes your P.V. clearance. On second thoughts, typing bang has probably got me on the list as well.

[Rossian]

.....fortunately one has no need of such a thing these days. Oh! the embarassing questions....... My ears still burn in the dark hours before dawn.

The Ancient Mariner

[TBM-Legend]

Let's not forget that Rutherford was actually a Kiwi not a Pom.....

[wiggy]

Ah ha......hence my post #7.:ok:

I think the technically correct description (certainly how it is described in biographies etc) is that Lord Rutherford was British, New Zealand born...(due to parentage and possibly nationality rules at the time)

[Tankertrashnav]

The big South American river company sell it.

So do Amazon ;)

Rossian - you realise that as a result of your gargle search

Why didn't he try Google?

[ImageGear]

There was much for me to consider in both papers although I am reluctant to pursue further knowledge regarding the physics involved, since it is not a subject with which I am intimately familiar.

However, the route to operational readiness and the development of a fully integrated deterrence platform also interests me. When needs must, etc. The subsequent speaker in referring to the Vulcan, and the example given of an operational sortie by a member of a front line crew, is both fascinating and disturbing. The capability of the aircraft to execute the defined task, as it was, seems to have resulted in a quite remarkable fit to purpose. I shall read a little more. The enduring "Vulcan" thread has provided me with considerable information however I have noted background detail in these documents that fills a number of gaps in my own personal experience.

Imagegear

[TBM-Legend]

Lord Rutherford was British, New Zealand born

He was Lord Rutherford of Nelson...

Nelson is his original home town in the South Island of NZ but alas we colonials have always been swept up in the colonial dust bin of Britain...

[megan]

Even an Australian, Mark Oliphant, acting on behalf of the British MAUD Committee,, played a highly significant role in the bombs development. Certainly a multi national effort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Oliphant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAUD_Committee

[Ex Cargo Clown]

There's an interesting (and possibly false story) That there is an office in Manchester Uni that has a strange cancer rate that Rutherford worked in.

[Ddraig Goch]

For some more information about early atomic bomb research pre the Manhattan project see the following:

https://rhydymwynvalleyhistory.co.uk/history/history-valleyworks.htm

All kept secret until relatively recently, though many locals worked there.

[VinRouge]

IMHO, Jim Baggotts book is by far the best I have found on the topic. Also covered off the deals between UK and US during this timeframe.

Well worth a read, not least to learn of Fuchs involvement in Russian Spy rings from that time, activity that saw the Rosenbergs executed for similar activity in the USA (the went to the chair).

Quite a dit on the UK Tube Alloys programme on Wiki.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Alloys

[ShotOne]

Rutherford would have been astonished to see himself spoken of as other than British And had he conducted his research with the facilities then available in NZ we’d never have heard of him. As a result his former lab at University of Manchester is still slightly radioactive!

[Cazalet33]

Leo Szilard was a naturalised Brit. If anyone can be said to be the 'inventor' of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, it is he.

He patented the idea of nuclear weapons and handed ownership of that patent to the Admiralty of his adopted country.

Rutherford scorned the idea, mocking it by saying that anyone who believed in nuclear power was "talking moonshine".

[Molemot]

I can recommend "Test of Greatness", by Brian Cathcart; an entertaining and informative account of the development of the British bomb. A fascinating mix of science and fumbling.... I've just looked at the current prices, and will now carefully dust off my copy(!)

[Rossian]

......its OK matey, having known oxenos for a looooooong time I don't need the said search engines translate tool to understand him. And he IS a pilot but an amiable one.
(However he has been known to wear Empire Builder KD shorts in furrin parts. Which caused a mixture of dismay and hilarity in equal measure during an enforced stopover in Istres) Also a looooong time ago.

The Ancient Mariner

[Bagheera S]

Don't forget Dr Francis Simons (later Professor & Sir) a naturalised Brit, I know, who invented Uranium gaseous diffusion separation process one Saturday morning in June 1940 using a tea strainer, a bicycle inner tube and sealing wax. He demonstrated it's practical application by separating H2O vapour from CO2 gas in time for inclusion in Tizards mission to the USA in the autumn of that year. At the time the US had relegated the atomic bomb to a 20year "academic " project at least in part because nobody had figured how to separate the active ingredient. Now although it's generally credited that it was Einstein's letter to Roosevelt which kicked the project to super priority the fact that someone had cracked one of the key show stoppers must have meant something......surely.

Francis went on to pioneer Gaseous Diffusion at
Rhydymwyn Valley in north Wales and latter Oakridge.

The Brit team that cracked the implosion Pu bomb were Chadwick, Tuck, Taylor, Peierls, and Frisch.......uh and Fuchs. They took the job on when it was generally considered to be a dead duck;- It had been offered to the best American guy they had, Teller (well a naturalised American ) who declined, so it went to the British Mission who were at the time "a bit out of place" but keen to show what they could do. What was achieved in a stupidity short timescale was simply astonishing.

[oxenos]

(However he has been known to wear Empire Builder KD shorts in furrin parts. Which caused a mixture of dismay and hilarity in equal measure during an enforced stopover in Istres) Also a looooong time ago.
Nonsense. My KD was made by that master craftsman Tong Hoe of Changi Village. You must be thinking of two other fellas.