Ok, here's a new one to me. I know, we're all sick of nazi crap/theories/news, but when it comes to these cubes it is interesting.

Quote:

---

A research team based at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington is working to certify that mysterious uranium cubes in American laboratories were once part of Nazi Germany's efforts to build a successful nuclear program. Using nuclear forensics, the team might be getting closer to determining the provenance of the radioactive cubesas of yet, no one is even sure how most of them got to where they are today.

The team's research was presented today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. From 1939 through 1945, the Nazis had their own nuclear program. There were two Nazi research groupsone run by Werner Heisenbergand another led by Kurt Diebnerthat designed and built nuclear reactors with the hope of making an atomic bomb. After the war, many of the cubes were shipped to the United States, where they disseminated into universities and private ownership, through formal and informal channels.

The cubes generally lack a solid provenance historythat is, people didn't really keep track of every hand they passed through and when. The current team suspects that there were once between 1,000 and 1,200 of the cubes in the Nazi reactors, but roughly 12 are known today; now, the team wants to figure out the origin of a cube in Washington State, as well as a few others.

---

One of things the world should celebrate is how worthless Hitler was in running a county and war effort.

This is another case of competing entities working against each other and resulting in lack of development.

Just think if they coordinated efforts like the US did in all things war related

Regarding the Manhattan Project. there were certainly "competing" programs going on. We were researching different isotopes, different methods of making a bomb, etc. We didn't know which would work, so we simply funded several different methods.

One example was the Y-25 Plant, built near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. They built the damn building, not knowing exactly how they would use it. They couldn't wait to for the scientists, they just started pouring concrete. The three methods being considered would use three different voltages, each running at a unique frequency. So they simply built the plant with access to all three.

I believe this was also the plant that needed access to huge amounts of conductive materials. Copper was in short supply, so they secretly borrowed tons of silver from the US Treasury, and melted it down into their wiring.

After the war, it was returned to the treasury, with only the loss of a few ounces.

I think you are right about those facts/recollections. Also, fat man and little boy, of course, were developed...as complementary concepts with different fuel etc.

I think a lot of folks don't realize how...immature the nazi atomic bomb program really was.

It's probably at least partially true that the 'final solution' might have impaired the willingness of folks like Einstein/Oppenheimer (both of Germanic jewish families, essentially) etc. to work to deliver to Hitler such a weapon.

Quote:

---

As the scientists were celebrating their breakthrough, foremost in their mind was the thought that they had done it, they had beaten Germany to the creation of the bomb. After all, the race against Germany had been the driving purpose of the Manhattan Project and the reason given by many of the physicists involved for why they were so passionately committed to the bomb effort.

But how real was the German threat? In 1944, as the Los Alamos physicists were readying themselves for a test of the nuclear bomb, the American government finally learned the status of the German nuclear program.

In June of 1944, the Allies invaded France. A special team sent in by General Groves was charged with discovering how far German nuclear development had progressed. As the Allies pushed further and further into the continent, Groves's special team was able to report back: the German nuclear program had barely existed.

In 1940, the Germans had started investigations into the possibilities of nuclear power, but in 1942, they stopped. This was probably due in part to Hitler's lack of vision; he was unable to see the potential of nuclear weapons. Also, pro-German, anti-Nazi physicists who were unwilling to hand over such a dangerous weapon to Hitler may have sabotaged the bomb project from the inside. Whatever the reason, the nuclear program had been cast aside, and by December of 1944, the United States was aware of this.

The Manhattan Project had been intended to get the bomb before Germany; the United States now knew that Germany would never have the bomb. And yet the project continued unabated. The swift progress continued even after the German surrender. In fact, Oppenheimer later remembered this as the period in which the Los Alamos physicists worked the hardest.

---

I knew they were far behind us, but I'm not sure about non-existent. Some of the most daring and tragic events of the war involved sabotaging Naxi nuclear ambitions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage

Back in '45-47, the only atomic military wing in the world was the 509th stationed in Roswell, NM.

I think you're right about all of that, but it is fascinating to me, none the less. The bombs on Nagasaki/Hiroshima probably saved over a million lives, net, vs. a ground invasion. The scientific intent of those who quit/wanted to stop the program after Hitler died vs. the humanitarian good it did is quite remarkable, from a historical perspective.

Thank goodness for Captain America