[weikel]

I get the point but part of the premise of that episode was faulty Heisenberg so overcalculated(not intentionally he really was trying to build one) the critical mass for an A Bomb that Germany wouldn't have gotten one for a long time.

[drjoe]

"I get the point but part of the premise of that episode was faulty Heisenberg so overcalculated(not intentionally he really was trying to build one) the critical mass for an A Bomb that Germany wouldn't have gotten one for a long time."

I don't think that this is so. The critical miscalculation on the part of the German's was the calculation of the neutron absorption cross section of carbon. As a result of this miscalculation, by a German physicist [Walther Bothe], the Germans eliminated carbon as a moderator in their piles and resorted to the use of heavy water. When the Norwegian source of heavy water was eliminated by covert action by British forces the German's program was irredeemably crippled and the jig was up. Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" spells this out in detail.