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Long-time readers of Homer’s posts know that in 1939, there were a number of articles on recent breakthroughs in nuclear physics, and the possible military uses of atomic energy were openly discussed. The average well-read and intelligent American (of the type who would be a FReeper today) has read these articles and filed them in the back of his mind. In fact, when Tibbets is on his way to Hiroshima in the Enola Gay, he has a conversation with some of the crew, and tells them the one bomb they are carrying is a weapon of tremendous power. One of the crew comments it was “a chemist’s nightmare.” Tibbets replied “more like a physicist’s nightmare.” A crew member thought for a moment and as Tibbets was leaving, asked “Sir, are we spliting atoms today?” So the concept was more generally known, it just wasn’t talked about.

The Times articles about nuclear physics continued up until sometime in late 1940 if memory serves, and then the Times and all other worldwide scientific publications suddenly “went dark” on the topic of nuclear physics. That did not pass unnoticed around the world. It was widely assumed by all governments that all other governments were continuing research, in secret, on atomic weapons. In fact, Japanese physicists will tell their government exactly what was used on Hiroshima within 24 hours. And their reaction will be “my God, they actually built one, but the immense cost and effort that must have been involved means they only built one of them. Nobody could build more than that.” That’s why the second bomb, of a completely different type, was an even bigger shock and was the compelling reason to end the war. Nobody knew how many bombs it would take to destroy Japan, but everybody knew how many we were gonna use; as many as we wanted to.

Neils Bohr, one of the world’s leading nuclear physicists, managed to escape Nazi occupied Denmark and come assist with the Manhattan Project. Knowing the engineering tasks necessary to build atomic weapons, he doubted that it could be done for the reason he believed an entire country would have to be converted into a gigantic factory to build one. After he had toured Oak Ridge, particularly the K 25 gaseous diffusion plant, he was asked if he now realized he was wrong about what it would take to build a bomb. His reply was “No, I was right.”