Sun in a Bottle Read Online Free
Author: Charles Seife
that made such a result extremely unlikely, to say the least.” If a fusion reaction got going, there was too much energy lost through radiation to get the atmosphere hot enough to cause a chain reaction of fusing nitrogen. 6 The world was safe. Fusion was much more difficult than Teller initially imagined.
Fusion was so hard, in fact, that the Super, at least as originally designed by Teller, wouldn’t work at all. According to the physicist Robert Serber, “Edward first thought it was a cinch. Bethe, playing his usual role, knocked it to pieces.” Hans Bethe showed that the fireball in Teller’s Super device would cool very rapidly. Here, too, the energy of a budding fusion reaction would quickly drain away through radiation; the fusion would snuff itself out before it really got going. It wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle, but it was enough of a problem for the Manhattan Project physicists to put Teller’s idea on the back burner. In 1943, a review committee decided that all the lines of research for the project—and for its theoretical physics division, which had relocated to Los Alamos—were worthwhile except for one: fusion. Instead of trying to build superweapons, the committee argued, the lab must concentrate its efforts on building atomic weapons to end the war.
Teller was disappointed that his pet project was stalled. Bruising his ego further, Oppenheimer appointed Bethe to be the head of the theoretical physics division. Teller thought the appointment would be his—and he apparently took both slights personally.
This was the turning point in Teller’s career. It was at this moment that Teller, the brilliant physicist, started becoming defined by his character flaws: his egocentrism, his nearly manic optimism, and his paranoia. All these traits would play a role in the coming tragedy, but it was the paranoia that led Teller to blame a single individual for all the insults he received at the hands of the Manhattan Project. He was refused his rightful position as head of theory at Los Alamos, and the Super was mothballed all because of one man: J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer and Teller would soon become bitter enemies. The two were very different. Oppenheimer, gaunt and aristocratic, was quite unlike the limping, bushy-browed Teller. 7 The most striking difference was their politics. Oppenheimer, a leftist who flirted with Communism, was bound to clash eventually with Teller, the rabid anti-Communist.
However, in July 1945 the Teller-Oppenheimer feud was yet to ignite. It was a triumphant time for both physicists. The Los Alamos scientists had nearly overcome all the technical problems that faced them; they had manufactured and machined enough plutonium to build a “gadget” named Jumbo and had built an intricate cage of explosives that would force all the metal to assemble into a critical mass and explode. The scientists began to wager about how big the first atomic explosion—Trinity—would be. Oppenheimer bet that it would be the equivalent of a mere three hundred tons of TNT. Teller, ever the optimist, guessed that it would be forty thousand tons. It was raining in the predawn hours the day of the test, yet Teller was sharing his bottle of sunscreen with his colleagues.
When the New Mexico desert suddenly erupted with a light brighter than the noonday sun, the Manhattan Project scientists were relieved and jubilant. When a similar flash erupted over Hiroshima, the feelings were much more somber. When the war ended with Japan’s unconditional surrender, Oppenheimer, like many of his scientific colleagues, lost his taste for weapons work.
By mid-September, half the staff at Los Alamos was already gone. Oppenheimer stepped down a month later—and he was warning about the dangers of adding atomic weapons to the world’s arsenal. “The time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima,” he prophesied while accepting a military award in November. Bethe’s
Fusion was so hard, in fact, that the Super, at least as originally designed by Teller, wouldn’t work at all. According to the physicist Robert Serber, “Edward first thought it was a cinch. Bethe, playing his usual role, knocked it to pieces.” Hans Bethe showed that the fireball in Teller’s Super device would cool very rapidly. Here, too, the energy of a budding fusion reaction would quickly drain away through radiation; the fusion would snuff itself out before it really got going. It wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle, but it was enough of a problem for the Manhattan Project physicists to put Teller’s idea on the back burner. In 1943, a review committee decided that all the lines of research for the project—and for its theoretical physics division, which had relocated to Los Alamos—were worthwhile except for one: fusion. Instead of trying to build superweapons, the committee argued, the lab must concentrate its efforts on building atomic weapons to end the war.
Teller was disappointed that his pet project was stalled. Bruising his ego further, Oppenheimer appointed Bethe to be the head of the theoretical physics division. Teller thought the appointment would be his—and he apparently took both slights personally.
This was the turning point in Teller’s career. It was at this moment that Teller, the brilliant physicist, started becoming defined by his character flaws: his egocentrism, his nearly manic optimism, and his paranoia. All these traits would play a role in the coming tragedy, but it was the paranoia that led Teller to blame a single individual for all the insults he received at the hands of the Manhattan Project. He was refused his rightful position as head of theory at Los Alamos, and the Super was mothballed all because of one man: J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer and Teller would soon become bitter enemies. The two were very different. Oppenheimer, gaunt and aristocratic, was quite unlike the limping, bushy-browed Teller. 7 The most striking difference was their politics. Oppenheimer, a leftist who flirted with Communism, was bound to clash eventually with Teller, the rabid anti-Communist.
However, in July 1945 the Teller-Oppenheimer feud was yet to ignite. It was a triumphant time for both physicists. The Los Alamos scientists had nearly overcome all the technical problems that faced them; they had manufactured and machined enough plutonium to build a “gadget” named Jumbo and had built an intricate cage of explosives that would force all the metal to assemble into a critical mass and explode. The scientists began to wager about how big the first atomic explosion—Trinity—would be. Oppenheimer bet that it would be the equivalent of a mere three hundred tons of TNT. Teller, ever the optimist, guessed that it would be forty thousand tons. It was raining in the predawn hours the day of the test, yet Teller was sharing his bottle of sunscreen with his colleagues.
When the New Mexico desert suddenly erupted with a light brighter than the noonday sun, the Manhattan Project scientists were relieved and jubilant. When a similar flash erupted over Hiroshima, the feelings were much more somber. When the war ended with Japan’s unconditional surrender, Oppenheimer, like many of his scientific colleagues, lost his taste for weapons work.
By mid-September, half the staff at Los Alamos was already gone. Oppenheimer stepped down a month later—and he was warning about the dangers of adding atomic weapons to the world’s arsenal. “The time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima,” he prophesied while accepting a military award in November. Bethe’s
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