[HN Gopher] New evidence shows this uranium cube is likely relic...
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New evidence shows this uranium cube is likely relic of Nazi A-bomb
program
Author : Tomte
Score : 56 points
Date : 2021-08-27 05:33 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| [deleted]
| bsdooby wrote:
| Why the Germans did use 664 instead of 666 uranium cubes is
| beyond me...
| jl6 wrote:
| They didn't want anybody else writing their plans, which
| ultimately couldn't be executed by anybody.
| wolfretcrap wrote:
| 666 is number of the beast. I wonder how many thiest scientists
| would have refused to work on it if they were to use 666
| sschueller wrote:
| I don't think Germans are as superstitious as Americans. You
| won't find a single building "missing" the 13th floor in
| Germany.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| This was then - everyone was far more religious in the
| first part of the 20th century than today! You can't take
| current German sensibilities as representative of that
| time.
| bserge wrote:
| This was the same regime that shunned "Jewish science".
| risedotmoe wrote:
| The nazis were crazy into the occult. I don't doubt all
| sorts of wacko stuff went down because of that.
| chmod775 wrote:
| _Hollywood_ Nazis are crazy into the occult.
|
| You can read a more sober look into the matter here:
| https://aeon.co/ideas/the-nazis-as-occult-masters-its-a-
| good...
| [deleted]
| irrational wrote:
| Is this the same Germany that just a few centuries before
| killed more than 10,000 "witches"?
| MichaelGroves wrote:
| Probably 664 is what they had available, or what their
| calculated geometry called for. It seems silly to speculate
| that they could have or should have gone for 666 but
| deliberately chose not to. If that were the case, why not 665
| or 667? Is there any reason to think 666 would have been a more
| appropriate number?
| qubex wrote:
| Having seen photographs of the "diabolical chandelier" I
| expected 664 to be a centred cubic number, but it isn't. That
| leaves me somewhat perplexed as to how they actually arranged
| the geometry of the fissile material.
| tpmx wrote:
| Kind of wild that Werner Heisenberg was the principal scientist
| of Hitler's nuclear weapon development program during the war and
| then pretty much immediately after the war transitioned into a a
| civilian role, becoming the director of the Max Planck institute.
|
| Also, from his wikipedia article:
|
| _From 24 January to 4 February 1944, Heisenberg travelled to
| occupied Copenhagen, after the German army confiscated Bohr 's
| Institute of Theoretical Physics. He made a short return trip in
| April. In December, Heisenberg lectured in neutral Switzerland.
| The United States Office of Strategic Services sent agent Moe
| Berg to attend the lecture carrying a pistol, with orders to
| shoot Heisenberg if his lecture indicated that Germany was close
| to completing an atomic bomb._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg
| marcinzm wrote:
| I'm curious why the Germans spent so much effort building a
| complex prototype nuclear reactor, which isn't of much use in a
| war, versus focusing on a nuclear bomb exclusively, which is of
| use in the war. Did they simply not have the right type of
| fissile material for a bomb? Or was a reactor needed to better
| understand the physics involved?
| p_l wrote:
| They were going at it completely wrong, partially due to the
| whole Deutsche Physik movement.
| Mlller wrote:
| OTOH Heisenberg, particularly, was hated by the "Deutsche
| Physik" agitators and had certainly reason to strongly
| dislike them; cp. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heise
| nberg#SS_investiga...>.
| phire wrote:
| German Scientist didn't believe that a nuclear bomb could be
| completed in time to make a difference in the war. They
| estimated that America would complete their bomb first, only
| after 1944 and that if Germany hadn't won the war by 1944,
| victory would be impossible.
|
| And they were right, America didn't complete their bomb until
| 1945, and by that point it was too late to make any impact in
| the outcome of the war (other than forcing Japan to surrender).
|
| So they decided to focus resources elsewhere. The amount of
| resources spent on the German Nuclear reactor program was
| actually quite small.
| Mlller wrote:
| In addition to Phire's comment: "HEISENBERG: I would say that I
| was absolutely convinced of the possibility of our making a
| uranium engine but I never thought that we would make a bomb
| and at the bottom of my heart I was really glad that it was to
| be an engine and not a bomb. I must admit that." (Transcript of
| Surreptitiously Taped Conversations among German Nuclear
| Physicists at Farm Hall. August 6-7, 1945.
| <http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf>)
| dilippkumar wrote:
| Boon recommendation:
|
| The making of the atomic bomb by Richard Rhodes.
|
| An extremely interesting book that starts at a time when
| electrons were known but atoms were a disputed concept. It traces
| the development of nuclear physics by following the people, the
| close relationships within the nuclear science community and
| every incremental discovery and realization and insight that led
| to understanding nuclear fission, chain reaction and ultimately
| the two bombs that would end WW2.
|
| Despite the title of the book, the focus is really on the story
| of how we came to understand nuclear physics. The bombs happen to
| be an unavoidable part of this story - so the book is forced to
| eventually turn to project Manhattan and all that follows.
| Wistar wrote:
| Also the excellent John McPhee book, "The Curve of Binding
| Energy," centered on Dr. Edward Teller, the "father of the
| hydrogen bomb."
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| i'll see your book and raise you one, "turing's cathedral"
| covers the origins of computers from the Aberdeen Proving
| Grounds to Princeton and Los Alamos, leading up to the ENIAC
| and how von Nuemann used it to simulate the detonation of the
| hydrogen bomb, how the shockwaves would reflect off the
| interior of the shell to reach the pressure to kick off fusion.
| the narratives of people and machines are well balanced for an
| entertaining read.
| brundolf wrote:
| Imagine being the first scientist who realized what might be
| about to happen
| dilippkumar wrote:
| The opening hook in the book happens to be Leo Szilard
| realizing that a nuclear chain reaction is possible while
| crossing a street :-)
|
| It then goes back in time to Rutherford.
| platz wrote:
| of course they coated the cubes in cyanide
| rnabel wrote:
| There is a great part in "Now it can be told"[0] which discusses
| the counter intelligence efforts of the Manhattan Project -
| specifically when trying to figure out how far along Nazi
| development was. The upshot is: approximately nowhere, IIRC the
| test reactors never fully worked.
|
| However, in the process of finding out how much progress was
| made, they talked to multiple French nuclear scientists in newly
| liberated Paris. One of the scientists figured out that the US
| had working atomic weapons. This guy then managed to play this
| card to such effect (eg by suggesting that he may talk to the
| Soviets) that he was able to extract a lot of concessions from
| the US.
|
| Now we have a nuclear armed France which IIRC was rapidly
| accelerated by tech transfer negotiated as a result. Pretty wild.
|
| [0]
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/170428.Now_It_Can_Be_Tol...
| zafka wrote:
| One of those cubes would look great next to my W cube.
| exdsq wrote:
| > The Germans had a two-year head-start, but according to Koeth,
| "fierce competition over finite resources, bitter interpersonal
| rivalries, and ineffectual scientific management" resulted in
| significant delays in their progress toward achieving a sustained
| nuclear reaction.
|
| I wonder who'd win nowadays if the superpowers were to race for
| Super Weapon v2.
| officialjunk wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/military-expenditure-by-c...
| i would expect it to be correlated with military spending
| rShergold wrote:
| I would presume the ideal super weapon would be a lethal
| airborne virus that only you had the vaccination for. It
| would decimate your enemy but leave all their infrastructure
| intact.
|
| It wouldn't be too expensive to achieve. You would just need
| to find an existing virus and conduct gain of function
| research to make it more transmissible and more lethal.
| bserge wrote:
| Most of the countries that could develop and deploy such a
| bioweapon would need the labour as much as the
| infrastructure.
| zafka wrote:
| Pretty to think so--- supposing their AI/ML research was
| so limited that the were not planning automated
| manufacturing facilities.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| Ideal if you could get most of your population to actually
| take the vaccine...
| [deleted]
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Had no idea about this until recently, but for 4chan. "Saturn
| Cube" and Esoteric Nazi beliefs is an entire rabbit hole you can
| go down into. Cube with magical powers is a world wide belief,
| and most people aren't even aware.
| 08-15 wrote:
| I don't get it, what bomb program? The Haigerloch machine is
| obviously a power reactor, similar to the more modern CANDU line.
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