Quote:
Originally Posted by Por_sha911
A few years back there was an awesome series about developing the bomb called "Manhattan". They took some artistic liberty to spice up the series (which I could have done without) but all in all it was very well done. It ran 2014-15
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"Artistic liberty" is an understatement - but it was fun anyway to watch as, being filmed in Santa Fe, a few of my hoarder/engineer colleagues contributed many of the vintage props and did all of the "chalkboard" work. The fractional-sized tower used at Trinity is now at the Atomic museum in ABQ near Sandia Labs and Kirtland AFB.
The part about the latebreaking discovery regarding the neutronics of their available grade of Pu and its unsuitability of use in a "gun" device (to be called "Thin Man" after FDR) was more or less true. They went from "wow we seem to have useless exceptionally expensive material" to the implosion device in (IIRC) under 18 months.
Fun fact on the implosion devices - the necessary timing had never been done before. George Kitsiakowski was the guy that made it work. As austere as life in LA was over those years there was a crude ski area. George was an explosives expert. He was also sort of in charge of the ski area. Just as "everything's a nail if you have a hammer" you can probably guess that chain saws were not used for removing the trees...
Cheers!