
Why They Called It the Manhattan Project (2007) - wglb
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/science/30manh.html?pagewanted=all
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vedosity
I'm loving all the history of the atomic bomb and related articles, but I'm
curious. Is this just a trend on HN right now or is something I'm not aware of
going on?

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peter303
There is a dramatic series made just for WGN-TV called Manhattan. Its about
life in Los Alamos during the bomb development times. Its about spies,
counter-spies, bored horny housewives and bomb development. it was more
interesting in the beginning, but has bogged down in subplots.

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omnibrain
Is Feynman cracking safes in it?

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moioci
" But General Groves feared that would draw undo attention."

Geez, the NYFT used to have copy editors. Dismayed to see that this goes back
to 2007. I wonder if they were using voice recognition.

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Animats
The Manhattan Engineering District HQ was, for some time, on the 67th floor of
the Empire State Building. Or so says "Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project",
Cynthia C. Kelly, ed. But that's a 2006 book, and the remark lacks a footnote.
An earlier source is needed.

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pointpointclick
My grandparents worked in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the war. A couple
interesting reads:

City Behind a Fence: [http://www.amazon.com/City-Behind-Fence-
Tennessee-1942-1946/...](http://www.amazon.com/City-Behind-Fence-
Tennessee-1942-1946/dp/0870493094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412268670&sr=8-1)

Girls of the Atomic City: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Girls-Atomic-City-
Untold/dp/145161...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Girls-Atomic-City-
Untold/dp/1451617534/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1412268670&sr=8-2)

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Shivetya
Oh the reaction that would happen now should any perceived as dangerous if not
truly dangerous project were to be hidden around a major metro area or within.
Considering the uproar slowly evolving over Ebola, the CDC, and hospitals who
treated people, it doesn't take much this day and age to generate interest or
work on people's fears.

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aamar
I think the reaction would have been muted by the fact that the project was
long gone by the time the details were widely known. And the danger of
radiation was also not widely appreciated until the 50s.

I used to work a few years ago in/around some of the Columbia buildings used
by the project, where the football-players-trucking-uranium-through-the-
tunnels story was well-known. The story ended with: those players all died
young, mostly from cancer. Maybe that part of the story is harder to confirm;
it was left out of the OP.

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excalq
I actually work for a tech startup in the Chambers Street building that was
the original HQ of the Manhattan Project. It kind of blew our minds when we
found out!

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ctdavies
This article doesn't even mention Fermi! Anyway, I thought most people already
knew the Manhattan Project began in Manhattan.

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lutusp
> This article doesn't even mention Fermi!

Or Leó Szilárd, who had the original idea for nuclear fission, supposedly
while crossing a street:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%C3%B3_Szil%C3%A1rd)

Quote: "The stoplight changed to green. Szilárd stepped off the curb. As he
crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the
future, death into the world and all our woes, the shape of things to come."

A somewhat hyperbolic description, but still.

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lobster_johnson
Hyperbolic? Well, it is right at the beginning of The Making of the Atomic
Bomb, and it's Rhodes' hook used to introduce the bigger story.

But even so, he's not wrong. Szilard did have (or claimed to have) a sudden
epiphay, which according to Rhodes was significantly informed by H. G. Wells'
"The World Set Free", which does foretell nuclear war and "a way to the
future, death into the world" etc.

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lutusp
> Hyperbolic? Well, it is right at the beginning of The Making of the Atomic
> Bomb, and it's Rhodes' hook used to introduce the bigger story.

Then I retract my comment (too late to edit it) -- Rhodes' book is first-rate,
one of the best on its topic. I've enjoyed Rhodes' writing on this topic
immensely, and I can't recommend it too highly. I didn't realize the comment
came from that book (I found it in an online Szilárd biography).

This is one of my all-time favorite books, along with its sequel.

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lobster_johnson
It's incredible. I don't think I have read a non-fiction book that is as
novelistic.

With TMAB he had the luxury of being allowed to paint a huge, sweeping story.
I felt that Dark Sun suffered a little from not having the same width of
canvas; it has to deal with a lot of different events and concerns, from the
Rosenbergs to Oppenheimer's trial. But it's still a great book.

Speaking of which, I found Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control" to be
horribly written in comparison. The writing is uneven and sloppy, and the way
he jumps between two different stories (the Damascus incident and then the
story of nuclear weapons) doesn't work at all. If I'm reading a (if not from a
literary point of view, then at least factually) fascinating depiction of a
nuclear incident, I don't want it to stop every few pages because the author
wants to backtrack and tell me about the history of nuclear weapons. It's
unfortunate, because the history the book tries to depict is fascinating.

Anyway, I wonder if Rhodes' other writings are as good?

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heeton
As an aside, I know someone who runs a cocktail bar called the Manhattans
Project - [http://manhattansproject.com/](http://manhattansproject.com/)

He's also a developer and physics geek, so a lot of the drinks end up with
fantastic nuclear program puns.

The FatManhattan etc.

If you're in London, UK, you should definitely join his mailing list and go
along to an event (they happen every month or so).

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ctdavies
As an aside, the Manhattan cocktail was invented for Churchill's mother.

