Great discussion. My grandfather was serving with the 6th Marines and was on the initial invasion of Okinawa, on April 1, 1945. If the atomic bombs had been dropped before the invasion of Okinawa, many soldiers and Marines would never have been killed or injured. Not to mention all the Japanese civilians and soldiers. I worked in Saipan years ago and I was sobering to visit Tinian and see the site where the B-29's Enola Gay & Bockscar had their atomic bombs loaded.
The planes that dropped the nuclear bombs were big and not particularly maneuverable, more like cargo planes than war planes, because those nuclear bombs were heavy, bulky, relatively inefficient prototypes. To reach their intended targets, a path from the nearest U.S.-held island or allied territory with a nice, long runway had to be cleared to assure that no one could shoot it down. How did that save anyone's life? MacArthur's blockade of Japan was working fine, but Harry S Truman was an other-directed, little man, who felt he needed to show he was tough, and an uncritical admirer of Sir Winston Churchill and other British elites, put on the ballot in place of Henry Wallace in the Dem. Convention of 1944 by people who are no friends of the U.S.A.!
I believe Thomas Sowell said that the atom bomb is not a new morality, only a new technology. Far more people died in Dresden or Tokyo in "ordinary" bombs than in either Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
not true, less people died in Tokyo or Dresden. Conventional bombings of Japan killed 300k over 6 months. Two bombs killed 200k in just 2 raids. And they'd have 20 - 30 by the end of the year. Completely different.
@@Cameronmid1 So you are an expert on Thomas Sowell? Which of his books have you read, and what did you find in them that makes you think is a "bit of an idiot"?
this is great stuff. i love the nukemap, never realized the creator would be such a knowledgeable, awesome dude, but now it all makes sense. can't wait to watch the next part!
My Dad worked on the Manhattan Project. I grew up with The Bomb 💣 Good Times! When our 5th grade teacher started telling us about "duck and cover", I just laughed and told her it was absolutely useless. She talked with my parents. The school stopped teaching that nonsense. We kept the paper sleeping bags on top of the cabinets though.
After my father literally missed the boat to Wake Island due to a medical emergency in 1941, and was medically bypassed by the US navy in early 1942, he was hired by DuPont Industries. The next three years worked at Hanford, Washington for the Manhatten project. He never, ever, spoke about the project period. After he died I found his certificate of thanks from the War Department in the Manhatten District project.
35:30 I agree, in terms of "changing international order", the Manhattan project is in it's own league. For the benefit of others like myself to geek out over - a new-to-me, war-changing new technology story that seems super underrated is the the development (with the British) and large-scale manufacture of the proximity fuze. Also happened at the same time as Manhattan, also super secret and dependant on vast American industry.
A significant event for perspectively informing the US public about the impact of the bomb was John Hersey's 1946 article about the bombing. The New Yorker dedicated the entire issue to it. Widely read it helped lift the veil of ignorance the public had about the kind of suffering radioactivity wrought.
A fascinating conversation, a superb job by both of you. Really nice to hear about that A bomb vs Russian declaration of war situation in 1945 Japan be put into context. So few people are aware of that Russian dimension or the history of Russo-Japanese conflict. I look forward to the follow-up podcast in due course.
Human nature dictates that you must be capable of destroying your rival; else, you belong to them or a more powerful ally. And, is there really any difference.
up until the wall fell, west Germans referred to East Germany as "die sogenannte Deutsche Demokratische Republik" or "the so called German Democratic Republic"
Great interview Chris .. I would ask Prof Wellerstein what his take is on the 'famous' meeting between Heisenberg and Bohr at Bohr's home in Copenhagen in 1941 ? What's the thinking about what Heisenberg knew about how to make a bomb as opposed to a reactor and how did that influence Bohr's opinion about how quickly the US should proceed ? Bohr did meet with Oppenheimer in Los Alamos in 1943 and supposedly discussed where he thought Heisenberg was in his knowledge of building a weapon. It has also been reported that Heisenberg was well aware of how to make a bomb but deliberately sabotaged the program by slowing the pace of progress given that he disagreed with Hitler's political positions. Bohr is also quoted as saying that he believed Heisenberg, when he spoke about using graphite, didn't actually know the mechanics of how to make fissile material explosive.
I thought Wigner anticipated the possibility of Xenon poisoning, not Xenon as such but that some fission product or its decay product could steal neutrons.
Just curious, does the professor of the history the nuclear bomb include the nuclear triggers stolen from the Pennsylvania plant by the Israelis, and were forced to give them back but kept half and are now a nuclear threat in the middle east???
My understanding is that Pu 239 made always has some Pu 240 in it, and Pu 240 has a tendency to spontaneously split, sending out neutrons. This means that a gun type will tend to start too soon, before everything is together and so will have a much smaller yield. They looked at making a faster gun design, called Thin Man, but decided even that was unsatisfactory.
From what I have read, the energy activity of plutonium subcritical masses required for the Thin Man required greater seperation than the Uranium subcritical masses. Additionally a higher closing speed was also needed to get said masses into contact before a fizzle could occur and fission occurred. The Thin Man bomb cases were prototyped at +/- 33 ft. long and had a super heavy gun tube needed to manage the higher gun tube pressures required required for the higher closing speeds required by the Plutonium subcritical masses. Basically all this lead to a bomb case that would not fly and would just do flat spins (i.e. was unaimable). More pertinent maybe, no bomber with the lift capacity and range to deliver the thing existed even if would go where you aimed it. Even if created, the Thin Man was not air deliverable with the means available.
The morality or immorality of these weapons is a moot point. One of the most important events in recent times is the decision to forgoe domestically sourced uranium (ie the basis of nuclear tech) in favor of buying u238 and enriched u235 from russia. The bush administration decided that this was a good idea and our government has been paying russia/putin around a billionish dollars a year since. So how does that figure into the morality of the nuclear question, well say what you like about putin, hes not an idiot and used that money to modernize his nuclear arsenal. And the material hes sold us is recycled from the dismantled weapons like the multi megaton warheads that contain both highly enriched fissile fuel and lg quantities of u238 used in the tampers of those 5-15 megaton weapons. So other than the labor to take those old weapons apart putin is profiting massively not having to mine and refine anything. And it only stopped when the biden admin got caught still engaging in business with Russia by purchasing oil and fissile material. And with everything going on and politicians on all sides talking about using nukes, nobody is talking about this let alone debating whether or not this was a good idea or not. Putin had an aged decrepit nuclear arsenal until our leaders decided to just buy his spare fissile fuel knowing what hed do with it. So if the conflict in europe escalates into nuclear hell, putin's bombs will be peer weapons because we paid for them.
