Homer:
This is one of the rare instances I’m disappointed in your selections from the Times. I’d liked to have seen the full article on isolation of the U-235 isotope. It seems that such a powerful naturally occurring substance will have some ramifications in the current war, especially since it is being sought by Germany.
I’ll have to go dig through my copy of Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” for more on this.
There will be a steady stream of such articles in the coming year, until all news of research into nuclear physics “goes dark.” The astute reader of the New York Times science articles will deduce that construction of atomic weapons is possible. One such reader was a crew member of the Enola Gay. The crew was never told what they were training for, and even on the bomb run to Hiroshima, they were only told it was a very powerful weapon of a new type. When pressed what it was, the crewman asked if it were a “chemist’s nightmare” and told “no.” The astute crewman then asked if it were a “physicist’s nightmare” and told “something like that.” He then put two and two together and asked “Sir, are we splitting atoms today?”
That's what I get for letting my inventory dwindle. I have to scroll and grab instead of being more careful. I don't normally use my valuable time at the library to cover old ground, but this is an exception. I will revisit 5/5/40 on my next trip and get the rest of the story. Thanks for pointing it out.
I loaded "U-235" into my internal word-finder unit. Whenever it rolls past my optical units while I am scrolling fiche my digital unit will automatically press "Print."
Good catch, henkster. This article goes deeper than I would have guessed from the fuzzy page 1 headline at the top of the thread.
