“immediate practical significance”: Lawrence, Nobel banquet speech, Feb. 29, 1940, at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1939/lawrence-speech.html [accessed June 28, 2014].
Chapter Ten: Mr. Loomis
“peculiar accomplishment”: “Amateur of the Sciences,” Fortune, March 1946, uncorrected typescript, EOLP.
“the last of the great”: Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis,” biographical memoir, National Academy of Sciences, 1980.
“his homes contained”: Ibid.
“gadgeteering”: Ibid.
Winthrop & Stimson: Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park, p. 28.
Aberdeen Chronograph: See U.S. Patent 1,376,890, “Chronograph.”
“Loomis had ninety”: “Amateur of the Sciences,” Fortune.
“He thought [TVA] would”: Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park, p. 89.
$50 million: “Amateur of the Sciences,” Fortune.
“Without so much”: Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park, p. 87.
“He suggested”: Seabrook, Dr. Wood, p. 214.
“Queer things”: “Amateur of the Sciences,” Fortune.
“You damned American”: Loomis recollections, HCP.
a conference in January: The papers were all published in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, April 1928; see also Seabrook, Dr. Wood, p. 221.
“anonymous friend”: Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis.”
“Every famous scientist”: Loomis recollections, HCP.
“gaps in time”: Ibid.
“had all the earmarks”: Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis.”
“He was just a”: Loomis recollections, HCP.
“He probably didn’t”: Birge OH, BANC.
“in any way”: Loomis to Sproul, November 28, 1940, EOLP.
“subject to your discretion”: R. W. Kettler (university controller) to Lawrence, March 17, 1955, EOLP.
Every day: Birge oral history, BANC.
“to learn about”: Alvarez, Adventures, p. 80.
“I hope your”: Chadwick to Lawrence, April 16, 1938, EOLP.
“in some quarters”: Lawrence to Weaver, September 16, 1939, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 472.
“going ahead splendidly”: Lawrence to Loomis, December 27, 1939, EOLP.
“If it looks”: Childs, American Genius, p. 298.
“not an entirely”: Weaver to Sproul, January 23, 1940, EOLP.
“Dr. Weaver has come”: Lawrence to Loomis, January 14, 1940, EOLP.
“there seems every”: Weaver to Sproul, January 23, 1940, EOLP.
“I may be sort of panicky”: Transcript, telephone conversation, Professor E. O. Lawrence and Dr. Warren Weaver, January 29, 1940, EOLP.
“link the names”: Morris to Ford, Nov. 14, 1939, EOLP. Although historians often identify him as “David,” Morris’s given first name was “Dave.”
“one of the most interesting”: Compton, Karl, to Weaver, January 29, 1940, EOLP.
“a considered statement”: The quotation is from the version Weaver sent to Karl Compton, January 25, 1940, EOLP.
“Is someone going”: Weaver to Lawrence, February 13, 1940, EOLP.
This query bore: See Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 472.
He disposed of: Lawrence to Weaver, February 21, 1940, EOLP.
“We were agreed”: Bush, Pieces of the Action, p. 33.
“You can’t get a group”: Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park, p. 149.
“Our trustees voted”: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 482.
“walking on air”: Ibid.
“Great and small”: Ibid.
“After spending some time”: Alvarez, “Alfred Lee Loomis.”
Chapter Eleven: “Ernest, Are You Ready?”
“It was a cool”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 7.
“It may be”: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 444.
“within a week”: Weiner, Exploring the History of Nuclear Physics, pp. 90–91.
“In how many ways”: Oppenheimer to Fowler, January 28, 1939, Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters, pp. 205–6.
“I think it really”: Oppenheimer to George Uhlenbeck, February 5, 1939, ibid., p. 209.
“You know what”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 281.
he had kept two suitcases: “Leo Szilard: His version of the facts,” Part II, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1979.
“We both wanted”: Weart, Spencer R., “Scientists with a Secret,” Physics Today, February 1976.
“quickie experiment”: Alvarez, Adventures, pp. 76–77.
“Chances for reaction”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 292.
“what you are after”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 17. See also Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 314.
“we have a goat”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 315.
“All right”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 20.
“swimming in syrup”: Kevles, The Physicists, p. 324.
“I had assumed”: “Leo Szilard: His version of the facts,” Part III, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1979.
the Athenia had been sunk: Childs, American Genius, p. 293; see also Aebersold recollections, HCP.
“regarding the war situation”: Lawrence to Loomis, May 20, 1940.
“hard pressed”: Heilbron and Seidel, p. 451.
In June 1940: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 351. The McMillan-Abelson letter is Edwin McMillan and Philip Hauge Abelson, “Radioactive Element 93,” Physical Review 57 (June 15, 1940): p. 1185.
“Just come over”: Interview of Otto Frisch by Charles Weiner, May 3, 1967, AIP.
They were “electrified”: Oliphant, “The Beginning: Chadwick and the Neutron,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 1982.
“All wheels”: Bush, Pieces of the Action, p. 36.
“an end run”: Ibid., p. 32.
For Fermi: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 27.
“a sort of”: Childs, American Genius, p. 306.
after hosting: Alvarez, Adventures, p. 84.
one of the “vaudeville”: Interview of Lee DuBridge by Thomas D. Cornell, March 6, 1987, AIP.
“I can’t tell you”: Buderi, Invention That Changed the World, p. 46.
“If Lawrence was interested”: Guerlac, Radar in World War II, p. 260.
“We just got”: DuBridge interview by Thomas D. Cornell, AIP.
“It was essentially”: Interview of Edwin McMillan by Charles Weiner, June 2, 1972, AIP.
“light a fire”: Childs, American Genius, p. 311.
“slow, conservative”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 361.
“very vindictive”: Interview of Conant by John C. Landers, 1974, quoted in Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 147.
“I told him flatly”: Ibid.
“over my head”: Ibid.
“You did a very fine”: Bush to Lawrence, July 14, 1941, text in HCP.
“Two facts”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 46.
The report discussed: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 37–38.
“on the whole”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 47.
“certainly no clear-cut”: Ibid.
“an extremely important”: Compton, pp. 49–50.
But he was stuck: Childs, American Genius, p. 315.
The MAUD Committee’s: The MAUD Report can be found in Cantelon, Hewlett, and Williams, eds., The American Atom: pp. 16–20.
“discreet enquiries”: Oliphant, “The Beginning: Chadwick and the Neutron.”
“I’ll even fly”: Childs, American Genius, p. 315. Childs attributes this wire to Lawrence; but since Oliphant was in Washington and Lawrence in Berkeley, it would seem that Oliphant instigated the meeting. (See Oliphant, “The Beginning.”)
“in your hands”: Childs, ibid., p. 317.
“involuntary conference”: The quote is from Conant’s personal “history” of the atomic bomb project, prepared in 1943 and
cited by Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 376.
“Much of the difficulty”: Rhodes, ibid.
“throw themselves”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 53.
“Oppenheimer has”: Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters, p. 223.
“leftwandering”: This may have been Oppenheimer’s description rather than Lawrence’s; see Oppenheimer recollections, HCP, which is the original source for the term.
“I embarrassedly asked”: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 185.
“Federal Union of Democracies”: Urey to Lawrence, August 10, 1940; Lawrence to Urey, August 20, 1940. Both in EOLP.
“blew a gasket”: Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 175.
“there will be no”: Oppenheimer to Lawrence, November 12, 1941, in Smith and Wiener, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters, p. 220.
Compton’s report: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 47–48.
“V.B. OK”: Ibid., p. 49.
“The matter would . . .”: Quoted in Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 387.
“whether atomic bombs”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 63.
“Before, we’d been jogging”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, pp. 81–82.
Chapter Twelve: The Racetrack
Driven by frustration: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 56–57.
“certain experimentation”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 51.
$340,000: Ibid., p. 53.
“In all the years”: Alvarez, Adventures, p. 113.
“You’ll never get”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 81.
“difficult . . . to suggest”: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 510.
“mind-boggling”: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 141.
“Podbielniak fractional distillation”: Ibid.
“Plutonium is so unusual”: Seaborg, “Recollections and Reminiscences at the 25th Anniversary of the First Weighing of Plutonium,” delivered September 10, 1967, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
“whether at the laboratory”: Seaborg, Nuclear Milestones, p. 7.
“war project”: Seaborg, Journals, p. 13 (November 28, 1940).
“Things look good”: Seaborg to McMillan, January 20, 1941, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, p. 461.
He staked: G. T. Seaborg, E. M. McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl, “Radioactive Element 94 from Deuterons on Uranium,” Physical Review 69 (April 1, 1946): p. 366.
“We felt like shouting”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 71.
There they separated: Ibid., p. 75.
“rather hasty”: Ibid., p. 81.
“Seaborg tells me”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 71.
“It wasn’t a cozy”: Kamen to McMillan, December 25, 1940, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, p. 520.
“I need somebody”: Edward W. Strong OH, conducted by Harriet Nathan, 1988, BANC.
“stimulating” and “refreshing”: Bush to Murphree, February 23, 1942, quoted in Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 60.
“All I knew”: Oakland Tribune, January 9, 1986.
“We had more trouble”: Transcript, In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Personnel Security Board, April 12, 1954, p. 272 (henceforth IMJRO).
“Ernest Lawrence yelled”: Ibid., p. 268.
“The crushing responsibilities”: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 181.
“He is Jewish”: Lawrence to Allen, September 22, 1937, EOLP.
He was aware: The saga of Kamen’s security case is from Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, pp. 164–67.
“EOL thinks I told”: Seidel, “The national laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission in the early Cold War,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32, no. 1 (2001): pp. 145-162.
“felt no doubt”: The quote is from Compton’s deposition in Kamen’s 1954 libel case against the Chicago Tribune. See Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 316, n. 17.
Arthur Compton, who faced: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, pp. 94–95.
“It’s none of your business”: Molly Lawrence recollections, HCP.
by mid-January: Ibid., p. 57.
He telephoned: Ibid., p. 59.
Vannevar Bush balked: Weaver recollections, HCP.
“for expediting the construction”: Fosdick, Story of the Rockefeller Foundation, p. 174.
“In the whole”: Ibid., p. 175.
“We all knew”: Parkins, “The Uranium Bomb or the Calutron, and the Spare-Change Problem,” Physics Today, May 2005.
“the possession of”: Conant to Bush, May 14, 1942, cited in Hershberg, James B. Conant, p. 160.
Earlier that spring: Seaborg, Journals, p. 158.
With his customary: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 70.
“picking a horse”: Childs, American Genius, p. 336.
There would be: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, pp. 142–43.
Chapter Thirteen: Oak Ridge
“a group of men”: Ibid., p. 80.
“I was hoping”: Leslie R. Groves, “The Atom General Answers his Critics,” Saturday Evening Post, June 19, 1948.
“Having seen General Groves”: Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 20.
He arrived at the Rad Lab: See Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 489.
On November 5: Smyth Report, p. 195.
“Groves walked in”: Serber, Los Alamos Primer, p. xxxii.
“designed and fabricated”: Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 60.
“setting up an organization”: Nichols, Road to Trinity, p. 73.
“I have known”: Lawrence [to Groves], January 15, 1943, EOLP.
“invisible materials”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 90.
“Unfortunately I cannot”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 89.
Fermi’s most recent prototype: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 48.
“I don’t see”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 100.
The mass and purity: See Smyth Report, p. 196.
Vacuum pumps: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 143.
Ernest now found himself: For Groves’s drive during construction, see Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 147–48.
“certain special precautions”: Groves to Lawrence, July 29, 1943, HCP.
Groves calculated: Groves, Now It Can Be Told, p. 97.
During a two-week: Ibid., p. 104.
“When you see the magnitude”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 154–55.
“so many PhDs”: Ibid., p. 148.
“Would you like”: Childs, American Genius, p. 344.
“unfinished movie set”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 110.
“He felt it”: Childs, American Genius, p. 342.
“essentially illiterate”: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 157.
“watching meters”: Gladys Owens, quoted in “The Calutron Girls” at smithdray1.net/angeltowns/or/go.htm [accessed December 9, 2012].
“no receiving dock”: Parkins, “The Uranium Bomb, the Calutron, and the Space-Charge Problem.”
Colonel Nichols, exasperated: Nichols, Road to Trinity, p. 131.
the eleven thousand Tennessee Eastman employees: Ibid., p. 129.
71 different types: Smyth Report, p. 201.
“The problem of where”: Nichols, Road to Trinity, p. 92.
Some material always: Smyth Report, p. 202.
construction was well along: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 159.
“I had never seen”: Alvarez recollections, HCP.
the Alpha II racetracks: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 164.
“The primary fact”: Lawrence to Conant, May 31, 1944, cited in Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 166.
“you’ll be interested”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 144.
“Of course”: Seaborg, Adventures in the Atomic Age, p. 103.
Chapter Fourteen: The Road to Trinity
For four dispiriting: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 342
.
“not using the bomb”: Alice Kimball Smith, “Behind the Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb: Chicago 1944–1945,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1958.
He proposed several: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 323.
The proposal landed: Ibid., pp. 326–29.
The weapon in development: Ibid., p. 329.
“know in our hearts”: Franck memo of April 21, 1945, quoted by Smith, “Behind the Decision.”
Groves had begun training: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 334.
“it was considered”: Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb,” Harper’s, February 1947.
“something akin”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 339.
“Vannevar Bush and Jim Conant”: Stimson, “The Decision.”
“the world in its present state”: The nearly complete memorandum is published in Stimson, ibid.
Conant later described: James B. Conant, My Several Lives, p. 302.
Japan “was an overpowered”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 226.
“moral isolation”: Ibid., p. 235.
“This demonstration might”: The Bush-Conant memo can be found in Sherwin, World Destroyed, appendix F, p. 286–88. Also see Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 329.
Compton estimated: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 356. Byrnes’s reaction is at Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, p. 283.
“vigorous program”: Hewlett and Anderson, New World, p. 356.
“it seemed to be”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 238.
“It was discussed”: Lawrence to Karl K. Darrow, August 17, 1945, EOLP.
“An atomic bomb”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 239.
“We didn’t think”: Transcript, IMJRO, p. 34.
“the number of people”: Lawrence to Darrow, August 17, 1945.
“We don’t think”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 642.
“could not be considered”: Stimson, “The Decision.”
“as to whether”: Compton, Atomic Quest, p. 239. Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope, p. 48, reports Oppenheimer’s recollection that the panel did not receive the assignment until it had already convened in Los Alamos, where he recalled it was delivered verbally by Compton.
“as soon as possible”: Stimson, “The Decision.”
Bard, presently dissented: Smith, “Behind the Decision.”
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