[ExI] not that rare earth (part 2 of at least 2)

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: spike at rainier66.com <spike at rainier66.com> 



 

 

Fun aside for material substitution hipsters, not related to rare earths at all but still entertaining.

 

In January 1998 the physics club where I worked contacted Edward Teller, who lived in Stanford, close to where our club met at Xerox PARC, where the operating system you are now using was originally designed by Doug Englebart’s group.  Teller had just turned 90.  We were talking about singing happy birthday to him when he arrived, which I thought was a marvelous idea, but we were told he is a notorious grumpy bear.  So we didn’t.  Damn.

 

When he arrived, he was nothing like what we expected.  he wasn’t grumpy at all.  If I were to come up with two adjectives that day, it would be smart and jolly.  I had read his book Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics, in which he talks about Los Alamos and why he was driving so hard for the “super” as he called it: in those days, it wasn’t entirely clear if high explosives alone were sufficient to ignite a tritium reaction (they considered it unlikely) or if a uranium fission explosion would do it, or even if a much larger plutonium fission reaction was necessary.  They didn’t know, but Teller made the case that it is critically important to get that answer.  Reason: it takes a lot of visible action to get plutonium.  Uranium not so much, and high explosive: none.

 

He discussed the risk if a fusion reaction could be initiated with high explosives.  Any bad actor could set up what they called the back yard weapon.  It would be an Olympic size swimming pool filled with Very Heavy Water (tritium hydride.)  Such a device would be too large and heavy to haul anywhere, but the resulting explosion would be so big, it would nuke the entire planet.  So why bother hauling it anywhere else?  Set that up in your own back yard.

 

Jolly old Edward Teller related fun stories from Los Alamos, such as the time he and Stanislaw Ulam were called by General Groves to meet with the Secretary of Treasury and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, after Groves asked for 100 tons of copper.  The copper mines had already sold all its future production to the DoD and had none to offer.  Stimson asked Groves if there is any other material he could use.  

 

The meeting itself was unclassified because Stimson knew about the Manhattan project but Morganthau was not briefed.  Vice President Truman wasn’t briefed either.  Only those who really needed to know knew.  Morganthau had orders to give Groves whatever he wanted.  As the story goes, Stimson asked Groves if there is any substitute for copper.  He replied only silver.

 

To the Secretary of Treasury, the terms copper, silver and gold translate into what we would hear as money, big money and biggest money.  So when he heard Groves requesting money, and General Groves say since they could give him enough money, but big money do instead, Morganthau counteroffered biggest money.

 

The conversation went something like this: General, we can’t fill the order for 100 tons of copper because of war needs.  Are there any substitute materials?  

 

Groves: Silver.  Send me 100 tons of silver.

 

Morganthau, who may not have even been aware of how much is a ton of anything: General, we at the Treasury do not refer to silver by the tonnnn.  Precious metals are measured by the Troy ounce. 

 

Groves turns around and asks Ulam and Teller how much that is, at which time they chorus in perfect unison: 1.5 million.

 

Groves: Very well Secretary Morganthau, send me 1.5 million Troy ounces of silver.

 

Morganthau was aghast at the request.  Secretary of War couldn’t give Groves money, so he requested big money instead.  Morganthau tried offering biggest money.

 

Morganthau: General, it would be logistically much simpler to send you four tons of gold rather than 100 tons of silver.

 

Groves: Thanks but we have enough gold.  My top scientists tell me only the silver will do.

 

Morganthau to Stimson: There better be some really big initials on that order.

 

Stimson: How about FDR?

 

Morganthau: Ah.  Those are big initials.  General Groves, you shall have your... 100 tonnnnns… of silver.

 

Feynman told the story in his memoirs but from another perspective: how mind-boggling wasteful is war.  He gives the example that they had a hemisphere of pure gold, which didn’t meet the requirements, so they were using it as a doorstop.  Nobody ever tried to make off with it.  He mentioned the silver wire used at Los Alamos and how it was a pain in the ass to work with, as it isn’t as flexible as copper wire, and how they worried for a while that it would be stolen, but after the project was over, the wire was gathered up, melted back into ingots and sentl back to the treasury.  Only a very small fraction of a percent was missing, nearly within measurement certainty.  Scientists are generally honest souls.

 

End of fun old man story (I meant me, not Teller.)

 

In any case, it was a memorable time to meet in person the man who really pushed for the super, back in the days when most of the Los Alamos scientists didn’t want to work on it.  Teller was worried that the tritium reaction could be triggered by a uranium bomb (which would be bad) or high explosives (which would be worse.)  They were told that apparently Heisenberg thought it could be, since he had directed the Nazi nuke effort toward heavy water but not toward enriching uranium 235.  Some have speculated that Heisenberg knew from his own calculations that Germany didn’t have the resources to enrich uranium, or that he calculated that a tritium reaction could not be initiated from high explosives, and he thought it better to pretend otherwise than to tell der fuehrer it couldn’t be done, anticipating they would still be working on it when the war was over.  We may never know.  The Norwegians got in there and destroyed the Nazi heavy water tanks.  Hell of a cool story:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_heavy_water_sabotage

 

spike

 

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