WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.019 In 1943, the US government essentially borrowed 00:00:04.019 --> 00:00:07.259 about 14 ,000 tons of solid silver from the treasury. 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.580 They built a hidden city larger than most state 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:12.939 capitals, and they employed tens of thousands 00:00:12.939 --> 00:00:14.980 of people who were completely in the dark about 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.039 what they were actually doing. Right, which is 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:19.379 just wild to think about today. Exactly. I mean, 00:00:19.379 --> 00:00:22.219 we usually think of a multi -billion dollar industrial 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:24.519 empire as something that takes, you know, decades 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:27.160 of slow growth to build. But this was an operation 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:30.160 the size of the entire American automobile industry, 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:33.340 constructed from scratch almost overnight. and 00:00:33.340 --> 00:00:36.259 somehow it remained the absolute best -kept secret 00:00:36.259 --> 00:00:38.899 of the Second World War. It really is a logistical 00:00:38.899 --> 00:00:41.380 reality that kind of defies conventional understanding. 00:00:42.299 --> 00:00:44.380 We are talking about taking a purely theoretical 00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:47.140 concept, something that up to that point only 00:00:47.140 --> 00:00:50.000 existed as math on university chalkboards, and 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:51.899 willing it into a physical world -shattering 00:00:51.899 --> 00:00:55.320 reality in under 40 months. It's nuts. So welcome 00:00:55.320 --> 00:00:58.200 to this deep dive. Today we have a massive stack 00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:00.280 of source material in front of us detailing the 00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:02.799 Manhattan Project, and our mission for you listening 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.640 right now is to cut through that overwhelming 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:09.099 mountain of history. We want to extract the most 00:01:09.099 --> 00:01:12.579 mind -boggling logistical, scientific, and human 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:15.340 muggets of this whole endeavor. There is definitely 00:01:15.340 --> 00:01:17.659 a lot to sort through. Yeah, so okay, let's unpack 00:01:17.659 --> 00:01:21.150 this. To me, building the atomic bomb was like 00:01:21.150 --> 00:01:23.670 trying to assemble an airplane mid -flight while 00:01:23.670 --> 00:01:26.629 blindfolded, because these scientists and engineers, 00:01:26.629 --> 00:01:29.750 they had to invent the underlying physics and 00:01:29.750 --> 00:01:32.109 the massive industrial manufacturing processes 00:01:32.109 --> 00:01:35.129 to support that physics at the exact same time. 00:01:35.370 --> 00:01:37.090 Yeah, that's a great way to put it, because to 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:38.829 understand that transition from a theoretical 00:01:38.829 --> 00:01:41.709 fear to a boots -on -the -ground military operation, 00:01:41.769 --> 00:01:43.769 you really have to look at the timeline. The 00:01:43.769 --> 00:01:46.670 initial spark was in 1938. Right, the discovery 00:01:46.670 --> 00:01:49.829 of nuclear fission. Exactly. German chemists 00:01:49.829 --> 00:01:52.590 Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann discover fission. 00:01:53.329 --> 00:01:55.969 And the immediate terrifying realization among 00:01:55.969 --> 00:01:58.549 the global scientific community, many of whom 00:01:58.549 --> 00:02:00.769 by the way had recently fled fascist regimes, 00:02:01.329 --> 00:02:03.650 was the sheer amount of energy released when 00:02:03.650 --> 00:02:07.189 a uranium atom splits. Missing mass was converting 00:02:07.189 --> 00:02:09.750 directly into energy. Which is Einstein's whole 00:02:09.750 --> 00:02:13.009 E equals MC squared thing in action. Precisely. 00:02:13.349 --> 00:02:15.770 And the underlying fear was that Nazi Germany 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:18.550 could turn this brand new physics into a weapon 00:02:18.550 --> 00:02:21.960 of just unprecedented scale. Which prompts that 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:25.039 famous 1939 letter, right? From Albert Einstein 00:02:25.039 --> 00:02:27.460 and Leo Szilard to President Roosevelt, basically 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:30.379 urging him to secure uranium ore and fund chain 00:02:30.379 --> 00:02:32.620 reaction research before the Axis powers beat 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:35.080 them to it. Right. So Roosevelt creates an advisory 00:02:35.080 --> 00:02:37.400 committee, but the American effort actually languished 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:39.819 for a bit. It was really British scientists working 00:02:39.819 --> 00:02:42.259 under what was called the MAU committee, who 00:02:42.259 --> 00:02:44.280 provided the crucial breakthrough in 1940. Oh, 00:02:44.300 --> 00:02:46.099 wait, really? The British did the initial math. 00:02:46.240 --> 00:02:49.000 Yeah, they did. Because before this, scientists 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.479 assumed a bomb would require tons of uranium, 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:54.139 like literally tons, meaning it could only be 00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:56.199 delivered by ship, which makes it strategically 00:02:56.199 --> 00:03:00.439 really clunky. But the MOU committee calculated 00:03:00.439 --> 00:03:03.460 the fast neutron cross sections of uranium -235, 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:06.180 and they realized the critical mass wasn't tons 00:03:06.180 --> 00:03:09.159 at all. It was small enough to fit inside a contemporary 00:03:09.159 --> 00:03:11.680 bomber plane. Oh, wow. So suddenly it's mobile. 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:14.349 Exactly. that shifted the paradigm entirely. 00:03:14.610 --> 00:03:16.669 It wasn't just a fascinating lab experiment anymore. 00:03:16.870 --> 00:03:19.650 It was an actionable military necessity. And 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:21.590 when a project becomes a military necessity, 00:03:21.770 --> 00:03:24.389 the U .S. Army assumes control. They form the 00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:26.270 Manhattan district and they bring in General 00:03:26.270 --> 00:03:29.210 Leslie Groves to run it. And I found his initial 00:03:29.210 --> 00:03:32.090 reaction in the sources incredibly telling. Oh, 00:03:32.090 --> 00:03:34.849 he was furious. Yeah, he is handed this world 00:03:34.849 --> 00:03:37.250 saving top secret project, and he's absolutely 00:03:37.250 --> 00:03:39.530 livid because of his priority rating. Right, 00:03:39.530 --> 00:03:41.849 because the wartime military operated on a very 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:45.060 strict supply priority system. Groves was initially 00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.979 handed an AA3 rating. Which means what, exactly, 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:50.460 in practical terms? Well, to put it in perspective, 00:03:50.819 --> 00:03:53.020 that was the exact same priority rating given 00:03:53.020 --> 00:03:56.319 to a standard run -of -the -mill TNT plant. You're 00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:59.560 kidding! No. And Groves recognized instantly 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.400 that you cannot commandeer the massive steel, 00:04:02.659 --> 00:04:05.180 concrete, and electrical resources needed for 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:08.479 a sprawling, unprecedented scientific empire 00:04:08.479 --> 00:04:12.199 on an AA3 rating. So he marched into the war 00:04:12.199 --> 00:04:14.659 production board and essentially bullied the 00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:17.120 chairman into granting the project the top -tier 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:19.680 AAA rating. Skipped right to the top. Yeah, which 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:21.779 gave him the power to seize whatever resources 00:04:21.779 --> 00:04:24.300 he needed anywhere in the country. Okay, but 00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:26.800 I have to jump in here on Groves' next major 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:28.500 decision because it makes absolutely no sense 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:31.579 to me. Groves is a by -the -book military engineer, 00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:33.980 right? He is obsessed with security and chain 00:04:33.980 --> 00:04:37.459 of command, and he decides to hand the keys to 00:04:37.459 --> 00:04:40.000 the bomb design lab at Los Alamos to J. Robert 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:41.920 Oppenheimer. It is definitely the oddest pairing. 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:44.459 I mean, how did the military brass let him get 00:04:44.459 --> 00:04:47.139 away with that? Oppenheimer was this avant -garde 00:04:47.139 --> 00:04:49.579 theoretical physicist. He had known communist 00:04:49.579 --> 00:04:52.220 associations, zero administrative experience, 00:04:52.259 --> 00:04:54.019 and he didn't even have a Nobel Prize, like half 00:04:54.019 --> 00:04:55.519 the money he was supposed to be managing. It's 00:04:55.519 --> 00:04:58.639 true. On paper, Oppenheimer was a walking red 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:02.079 flag, military intelligence actively trying to 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.120 block his clearance. But Groves possessed an 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:07.839 incredibly ruthless eye for utility. What do 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:09.939 you mean by that? Well, during a long train ride 00:05:09.939 --> 00:05:13.300 in 1942, Groves realized that Oppenheimer was 00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:16.779 the only scientist who fully grasped the entire 00:05:16.779 --> 00:05:19.860 interdisciplinary nightmare of the project. He 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.160 understood the theoretical physics, yes, but 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:25.019 he also understood metallurgy, chemistry and 00:05:25.019 --> 00:05:27.019 the logistical challenges of building a remote 00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:30.060 laboratory. So he just saw the big picture. Exactly. 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:32.980 Groves personally overruled his own security 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:35.899 apparatus to waive Oppenheimer's clearance. He 00:05:35.899 --> 00:05:38.100 knew they were complete opposites. grows the 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:40.339 pragmatist, the abenheimer, the visionary. But 00:05:40.339 --> 00:05:42.319 they shared this relentless driving ambition 00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:44.800 to see the project through. But even with that 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:47.379 ambition, I mean, they couldn't just rent laboratory 00:05:47.379 --> 00:05:49.980 space in downtown Chicago. The danger, the radiation 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:52.540 and the sheer scale of the manufacturing meant 00:05:52.540 --> 00:05:54.560 they had to physically build a hidden empire 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:57.860 from scratch. They really did. They created massive 00:05:57.860 --> 00:06:02.379 secret installations. Oak Ridge, Tennessee, expanded 00:06:02.379 --> 00:06:04.899 from rural farmland into a heavily guarded city 00:06:04.899 --> 00:06:07.699 of seventy five thousand residents. It consumed 00:06:07.699 --> 00:06:09.839 massive amounts of the nation's electricity. 00:06:10.180 --> 00:06:13.000 Just out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. And Hanford, 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:15.480 Washington displaced farmers and Native American 00:06:15.480 --> 00:06:19.459 tribes to build a colossal reactor site. They 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:22.620 operated a transport fleet of over 900 buses, 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:25.120 which, by the way, was more buses than the entire 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:27.480 city of Chicago had at the time. That is staggering. 00:06:27.740 --> 00:06:30.120 And Los Alamos was just constructed on an isolated 00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:32.920 mesa in New Mexico, right? On the site of a former 00:06:32.920 --> 00:06:35.459 ranch school. The need to know policy groves 00:06:35.459 --> 00:06:37.920 instituted across these sites is legendary. I 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:41.300 mean, they peaked at 130 ,000 workers. Here's 00:06:41.300 --> 00:06:42.779 where it gets really interesting for you listening. 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:45.220 It's like having thousands of people baking individual 00:06:45.220 --> 00:06:47.560 ingredients in separate kitchens, but only one 00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:49.379 guy in the country knows they're actually assembling 00:06:49.379 --> 00:06:52.579 a cake. That is the perfect analogy. Compartmentalization 00:06:52.579 --> 00:06:55.500 was the absolute bedrock of their security apparatus. 00:06:56.180 --> 00:06:58.379 Workers only knew the specific task directly 00:06:58.379 --> 00:07:00.660 in front of them. The most striking example of 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:03.180 this is the calatron girls at Oak Ridge. Oh, 00:07:03.279 --> 00:07:05.620 I love this story. Yeah. These were young women, 00:07:05.920 --> 00:07:08.839 like Gladys Owens, hired to sit on tall stools 00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:12.420 and monitor arrays of dials and switches. Their 00:07:12.420 --> 00:07:14.740 instructions were remarkably simple. They just 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:16.959 had to keep a needle in a certain range by turning 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:19.339 a knob. And they had absolutely no idea they 00:07:19.339 --> 00:07:22.220 were operating electromagnetic isotope separators. 00:07:22.420 --> 00:07:25.139 None whatsoever. They were operating calutrons, 00:07:25.660 --> 00:07:28.160 which used massive magnetic fields to bend the 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.610 flight paths of uranium ions. Because the desired 00:07:31.610 --> 00:07:34.569 uranium -235 atom is slightly lighter than the 00:07:34.569 --> 00:07:38.230 common uranium -238 atom. Its trajectory bends 00:07:38.230 --> 00:07:40.490 just a fraction tighter in a magnetic field. 00:07:40.649 --> 00:07:42.470 So it basically gets caught in a separate pocket. 00:07:42.730 --> 00:07:45.310 Exactly. These women were enriching uranium for 00:07:45.310 --> 00:07:46.990 a nuclear weapon, and they thought they were 00:07:46.990 --> 00:07:49.389 just keeping a dial steady. Which brings up the 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:51.730 sheer logistical audacity of those catalytrons. 00:07:51.990 --> 00:07:54.029 I want to talk about my absolute favorite detail 00:07:54.029 --> 00:07:56.389 on this entire stack of sources. The copper shortage? 00:07:56.490 --> 00:08:00.060 Oh, the silver, yeah. Right. To generate those 00:08:00.060 --> 00:08:02.860 massive magnetic fields at Oak Ridge, they needed 00:08:02.860 --> 00:08:05.379 thousands of tons of copper for the electromagnetic 00:08:05.379 --> 00:08:09.160 coils. But copper is heavily rationed for artillery 00:08:09.160 --> 00:08:12.579 shell casings for the war. So what do they do? 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:15.720 They look for the next best electrical conductor, 00:08:15.980 --> 00:08:17.779 which happens to be silver. So the Manhattan 00:08:17.779 --> 00:08:20.160 Project brass simply goes to the US Treasury 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:23.699 and asks to borrow silver. And the response from 00:08:23.699 --> 00:08:26.480 the Treasury is just... peak bureaucracy. It 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:28.500 really is. When the project's representatives 00:08:28.500 --> 00:08:31.720 asked for thousands of tons of silver, the undersecretary 00:08:31.720 --> 00:08:34.169 of the treasury reportedly informed them Young 00:08:34.169 --> 00:08:37.009 man, you may think of silver in tons, but the 00:08:37.009 --> 00:08:39.029 Treasury will always think of silver in troy 00:08:39.029 --> 00:08:41.370 ounces. That is so good. But you know, that AAA 00:08:41.370 --> 00:08:44.009 priority rating won out. They ultimately withdrew 00:08:44.009 --> 00:08:47.730 14 ,700 tons of solid silver bullion from the 00:08:47.730 --> 00:08:50.429 West Point Depository, melted it down, and drew 00:08:50.429 --> 00:08:52.850 it into wires for the magnetic coils at Oak Ridge. 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:54.950 Just casual borrowing of the nation's wealth 00:08:54.950 --> 00:08:56.750 to build a machine nobody is allowed to know 00:08:56.750 --> 00:08:58.610 about. But seriously, how was it practically 00:08:58.610 --> 00:09:00.950 possible to keep an operation of this magnitude 00:09:00.950 --> 00:09:03.490 completely off the radar of the press and access 00:09:03.490 --> 00:09:06.470 powers. It came down to extreme consequences 00:09:06.470 --> 00:09:10.350 and sheer geographical fragmentation. The threat 00:09:10.350 --> 00:09:13.230 hanging over the workforce was severe. We're 00:09:13.230 --> 00:09:16.450 talking 10 years in prison or a $10 ,000 fine 00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:20.000 for disclosing secrets. Wow. Security forces 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:23.480 aggressively investigated over 1 ,500 loose -talk 00:09:23.480 --> 00:09:26.799 cases, but the primary defense was the fragmentation 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:29.419 itself. Even if a spy learned what was happening 00:09:29.419 --> 00:09:31.799 in one building at Oak Ridge, it wouldn't tell 00:09:31.799 --> 00:09:33.879 them what was happening at Hanford or Los Alamos. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:36.159 But all those secret cities, all that silver, 00:09:36.279 --> 00:09:38.779 all that intense security, I mean, it was ultimately 00:09:38.779 --> 00:09:41.059 useless unless the science actually worked. And 00:09:41.059 --> 00:09:42.820 the science was proving incredibly hostile. They 00:09:42.820 --> 00:09:45.340 were forced to pursue two completely different 00:09:45.340 --> 00:09:47.639 paths to a bomb simultaneously. Right, because 00:09:47.639 --> 00:09:49.759 they weren't sure which would work. Exactly. 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:52.820 Path one was enriching natural uranium -235 at 00:09:52.820 --> 00:09:55.639 Oak Ridge. Path two was breeding a brand new 00:09:55.639 --> 00:09:58.440 man -made element called plutonium in the world's 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:01.460 first industrial scale nuclear reactors at Hanford. 00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:04.720 And both paths push the absolute boundaries of 00:10:04.720 --> 00:10:07.580 physics and engineering. At Hanford, the B Reactor 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:10.899 was completed in September 1944. They power it 00:10:10.899 --> 00:10:13.539 up. It goes critical. The cooling water is flowing. 00:10:13.659 --> 00:10:16.480 Everything looks absolutely perfect. And then 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:19.600 just hours later, the power level mysteriously 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:22.159 drops, and the reactor completely shuts itself 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:24.720 down. The panic in that room must have been absolute. 00:10:25.019 --> 00:10:26.940 Oh, they thought they had fundamentally misunderstood 00:10:26.940 --> 00:10:30.179 the physics. It took physicists Chen Shengwu 00:10:30.179 --> 00:10:33.639 and Enrico Fermi to deduce the problem. A byproduct 00:10:33.639 --> 00:10:36.220 of the fission process was a radioactive isotope 00:10:36.220 --> 00:10:39.279 called xenon -135. OK, what does that do? Well, 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:41.899 it turns out xenon -135 has an abnormally large 00:10:41.899 --> 00:10:44.399 neutron capture cross -section. It essentially 00:10:44.399 --> 00:10:46.980 acts like a massive sponge for neutrons, eating 00:10:46.980 --> 00:10:49.360 up the needed to sustain the chain reaction. 00:10:49.899 --> 00:10:52.039 The reactor was choking on its own exhaust. And 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:54.019 the only thing that saves the entire plutonium 00:10:54.019 --> 00:10:56.620 project is a totally random act of corporate 00:10:56.620 --> 00:10:59.259 over -engineering. The DuPont engineer named 00:10:59.259 --> 00:11:03.340 George Graves had insisted on adding 504 extra 00:11:03.340 --> 00:11:05.799 tubes to the reactor design, going completely 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:08.360 against the scientists' exact blueprints just 00:11:08.360 --> 00:11:11.879 to be safe. Because of those extra tubes, they 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:14.600 could load in enough extra uranium to push through 00:11:14.600 --> 00:11:17.639 the xenon poisoning. It's incredible. If Graves 00:11:17.639 --> 00:11:20.240 hadn't ignored the theoretical physicists and 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:22.940 trusted his engineering instincts, the Hanford 00:11:22.940 --> 00:11:25.080 reactors would have been a billion -dollar failure 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:27.379 and the plutonium bomb would have been severely 00:11:27.379 --> 00:11:29.639 delayed. But even with the reactors running, 00:11:29.860 --> 00:11:32.440 the Los Alamos team faced a crushing realization 00:11:32.440 --> 00:11:35.460 in the summer of 1944 regarding the plutonium 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:38.419 itself. The fizzle problem. Yeah. What exactly 00:11:38.419 --> 00:11:40.360 was that? So they discovered that reactor -bred 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:42.980 plutonium contained an isotope, plutonium -240, 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:45.340 which has a very high rate of spontaneous fission. 00:11:45.580 --> 00:11:48.159 It was just too highly reactive. If they used 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:50.879 it in a simple gun -type bomb design, where you 00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:53.120 basically shoot one subcritical mass into another 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:55.620 to initiate the explosion, the plutonium would 00:11:55.620 --> 00:11:57.620 predetonate. Meaning it would just blow its a 00:11:57.620 --> 00:11:59.340 part too early. Exactly, it would melt itself 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:01.580 into a puddle before yielding a full nuclear 00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:04.419 explosion. So they are forced to pivot to an 00:12:04.419 --> 00:12:07.039 incredibly complex implosion design for the plutonium 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:10.100 bomb, which becomes the Fat Man. To visualize 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:13.159 this for you listening, a gun type bomb is simple, 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:16.519 shooting a bullet into a bullet. But an implosion 00:12:16.519 --> 00:12:18.440 design is like taking a tennis ball and trying 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:21.759 to crush it perfectly from all 360 degrees simultaneously, 00:12:22.059 --> 00:12:24.399 so it condenses into the size of a marble. If 00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:26.620 you don't squeeze it perfectly evenly, it just 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.000 bulges out the sides. And the precision required 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:31.179 to achieve that symmetrical compression in real 00:12:31.179 --> 00:12:34.200 life was staggering. You cannot just pack TNT 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:36.779 around a core and light it. They had to design 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:39.779 explosive lenses. Lenses? Like for glasses? Kind 00:12:39.779 --> 00:12:42.179 of the same concept, yeah. Much like an optical 00:12:42.179 --> 00:12:45.090 lens focuses light. These explosive lenses use 00:12:45.090 --> 00:12:47.049 alternating layers of fast -burning and slow 00:12:47.049 --> 00:12:49.529 -burning conventional explosives. They took a 00:12:49.529 --> 00:12:52.009 convex shockwave and turned it into a perfectly 00:12:52.009 --> 00:12:54.929 concave shockwave directed precisely at the center. 00:12:55.110 --> 00:12:57.149 And not only are they dealing with microsecond 00:12:57.149 --> 00:12:59.309 timing on these explosive lenses, they are trying 00:12:59.309 --> 00:13:01.789 to machine the plutonium core itself, which is 00:13:01.789 --> 00:13:04.330 a nightmare metal. From the sources, it's highly 00:13:04.330 --> 00:13:07.909 radioactive, heavily toxic, and pyrophoric. Right. 00:13:07.909 --> 00:13:10.490 Meaning if the metal shavings get too warm or 00:13:10.490 --> 00:13:13.330 exposed to moisture in the air, they just spontaneously 00:13:13.330 --> 00:13:15.750 catch fire. It sounds like an engineering hellscape. 00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:19.029 So knowing how impossibly complex the implosion 00:13:19.029 --> 00:13:21.690 lenses were and how difficult plutonium is to 00:13:21.690 --> 00:13:24.090 work with, why didn't they just scrap it entirely? 00:13:24.190 --> 00:13:26.769 Why not stick to the simpler uranium gun type 00:13:26.769 --> 00:13:28.830 bomb that they knew would work? It really came 00:13:28.830 --> 00:13:31.730 down to a brutal calculation of time versus volume. 00:13:32.149 --> 00:13:35.830 Enriching uranium -235 at Oak Ridge was agonizingly 00:13:35.830 --> 00:13:39.159 slow. By the summer of 1945, they barely had 00:13:39.159 --> 00:13:41.500 enough enriched uranium for one single bomb. 00:13:41.899 --> 00:13:44.740 The little boy. Just one. Just one. The Hanford 00:13:44.740 --> 00:13:46.960 reactors, however, could breed plutonium relatively 00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:50.080 quickly once the xenon issue was solved. If the 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:52.220 military wanted a continuous stockpile of weapons 00:13:52.220 --> 00:13:54.720 to force an end to the war rather than just a 00:13:54.720 --> 00:13:56.940 single unrepeatable demonstration, they had to 00:13:56.940 --> 00:13:59.460 make the plutonium implosion design work. And 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:02.220 because implosion was so theoretically complex, 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:04.519 they couldn't just trust the chalkboard math. 00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:07.340 They had to test it in the real world. Which 00:14:07.340 --> 00:14:11.279 brings us to the climax, the Trinity test. July 00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:15.279 16th, 1945, out in the New Mexico desert. The 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:17.940 anxiety is off the charts. They are so terrified 00:14:17.940 --> 00:14:20.740 the implosion will fail and just scatter their 00:14:20.740 --> 00:14:23.019 precious heart -earned plutonium into the dirt 00:14:23.019 --> 00:14:25.299 that they actually build a massive containment 00:14:25.299 --> 00:14:28.740 vessel called Jumbo. Yeah, Jumbo was a 214 -ton 00:14:28.740 --> 00:14:31.210 steel cylinder. The initial idea was to place 00:14:31.210 --> 00:14:33.629 the bomb inside it. If the conventional explosives 00:14:33.629 --> 00:14:36.129 fired, but the nuclear core fizzled, the steel 00:14:36.129 --> 00:14:38.429 would contain the explosion, allowing them to 00:14:38.429 --> 00:14:40.309 essentially scrape the precious plutonium off 00:14:40.309 --> 00:14:42.769 the inside walls and try again. Which is an insane 00:14:42.769 --> 00:14:45.230 contingency plan. Totally insane. They ultimately 00:14:45.230 --> 00:14:47.889 leave Jumbo empty on a tower nearby, and it actually 00:14:47.889 --> 00:14:50.129 survives the blast, proving just how massively 00:14:50.129 --> 00:14:52.529 over -engineered it was. But the test itself, 00:14:52.529 --> 00:14:55.250 I mean, the 20 kiloton explosion melts the desert 00:14:55.250 --> 00:14:58.370 sand into a radioactive green glass called trinitite. 00:14:58.490 --> 00:15:01.080 It shattered. civilian windows 100 miles away. 00:15:01.379 --> 00:15:03.120 The psychological shift among the scientists 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.100 at Trinity was profound. For years, they had 00:15:06.100 --> 00:15:08.659 been consumed by the intricate engineering puzzle. 00:15:09.399 --> 00:15:12.059 But standing in the desert, seeing a flash brighter 00:15:12.059 --> 00:15:14.360 than the sun and feeling the wave of heat on 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:17.940 their faces from miles away, it violently shifted 00:15:17.940 --> 00:15:20.820 their creation from an abstract theory to an 00:15:20.820 --> 00:15:24.220 undeniable reality. That's when Oppenheimer famously 00:15:24.220 --> 00:15:26.779 recalled that line from the Bhagavad Gita, right? 00:15:27.159 --> 00:15:31.240 Now I am become death destroyer of worlds. Yes. 00:15:31.539 --> 00:15:33.820 It really highlights the existential dread these 00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:35.759 brilliant minds were constantly calculating. 00:15:36.259 --> 00:15:37.899 I mean, there was a point before Trinity where 00:15:37.899 --> 00:15:40.740 physicist Edward Teller raised a theoretical 00:15:40.740 --> 00:15:43.580 fear that the massive heat of the bomb might 00:15:43.580 --> 00:15:46.440 literally fuse the nitrogen nuclei in the Earth's 00:15:46.440 --> 00:15:48.580 atmosphere. Right, sparking a runaway reaction 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:50.879 that would incinerate the entire planet. Exactly. 00:15:51.340 --> 00:15:53.220 Hans Beth ran the calculations and proved it 00:15:53.220 --> 00:15:55.240 was extremely unlikely, but the mathematical 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:58.389 chance wasn't technically zero. So what does 00:15:58.389 --> 00:16:00.250 this all mean for the people pushing the button? 00:16:00.450 --> 00:16:02.429 How does a group of human beings proceed with 00:16:02.429 --> 00:16:04.429 a test knowing there is even a fractional chance 00:16:04.429 --> 00:16:07.110 of ending the world? It speaks to the absolute 00:16:07.110 --> 00:16:09.710 terror of the alternative. You have to place 00:16:09.710 --> 00:16:12.309 yourself in the geopolitical context of 1942 00:16:12.309 --> 00:16:15.940 through early 1945. The assumption driving everyone 00:16:15.940 --> 00:16:18.139 from General Groves to the lowest lab technician 00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:21.059 was that Nazi Germany was doing this exact same 00:16:21.059 --> 00:16:23.539 math. The fear of the Nazis getting it first. 00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:26.440 Yes. The existential fear of a fascist monopoly 00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:28.879 on nuclear weapons overrode almost every other 00:16:28.879 --> 00:16:31.539 dread. By the time Allied intelligence confirmed 00:16:31.539 --> 00:16:34.039 Germany's nuclear program had stalled, the momentum 00:16:34.039 --> 00:16:37.240 of this $2 billion machine was practically unstoppable. 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:39.899 And the transition from the desert test to deployment 00:16:39.899 --> 00:16:42.840 is incredibly rapid. Logistics just shift into 00:16:42.840 --> 00:16:45.539 overdrive. The core of the uranium bomb is loaded 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:48.200 onto the USS Indianapolis and rushed across the 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:52.000 Pacific. By August 1945, the uranium bomb Little 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:55.159 Boy is dropped on Hiroshima, destroying 4 .7 00:16:55.159 --> 00:16:57.820 square miles and killing up to 140 ,000 people. 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:00.360 Three days later, the plutonium bomb Fat Man 00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:02.360 is dropped on Nagasaki through a last -minute 00:17:02.360 --> 00:17:05.099 break in the clouds. The sheer suddenness of 00:17:05.099 --> 00:17:08.140 the devastation shocked the globe. But the internal 00:17:08.140 --> 00:17:10.599 sources reveal it also shocked American leadership. 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:14.269 The military had plans to continue dropping bombs 00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:16.589 as they rolled off the assembly line. Wait, they 00:17:16.589 --> 00:17:19.250 were just going to keep going? Yes. But on August 00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:22.289 10th, the day after Nagasaki, President Truman 00:17:22.289 --> 00:17:24.349 was informed that a third bomb would be ready 00:17:24.349 --> 00:17:27.650 to drop in a matter of days. Truman immediately 00:17:27.650 --> 00:17:30.750 halted further bombings, requiring his express 00:17:30.750 --> 00:17:33.789 presidential authority for any future use. According 00:17:33.789 --> 00:17:36.349 to his cabinet members, Truman stated he couldn't 00:17:36.349 --> 00:17:38.630 stand the thought of wiping out another 100 ,000 00:17:38.630 --> 00:17:41.450 people, specifically mentioning the horror of 00:17:41.450 --> 00:17:44.230 killing all those kids. The war abruptly ends 00:17:44.230 --> 00:17:46.789 shortly after that, but the nuclear box has been 00:17:46.789 --> 00:17:49.809 opened. The world is permanently changed. Looking 00:17:49.809 --> 00:17:52.289 back at the massive stack of sources on the secret 00:17:52.289 --> 00:17:55.049 empire, what was the final bill? The total cost 00:17:55.049 --> 00:17:58.390 was roughly $2 billion in 1945. Adjusted for 00:17:58.390 --> 00:18:01.250 inflation today, that is about $28 billion. Which 00:18:01.250 --> 00:18:03.450 sounds like an astronomical amount of money for 00:18:03.450 --> 00:18:06.049 a secret project. But frame this for you listening 00:18:06.049 --> 00:18:08.549 right now. That $2 billion was actually equivalent 00:18:08.549 --> 00:18:11.190 to less than nine days of total U .S. wartime 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:13.869 spending. Less than nine days. Nine days to build 00:18:13.869 --> 00:18:16.529 the atomic age. In the context of the total war 00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:19.480 economy, it was a fraction. And 84 % of that 00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:22.539 cost was purely infrastructure building the massive 00:18:22.539 --> 00:18:25.400 plants at Oak Ridge and Hanford to produce the 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:27.859 fissile material. When you divide up the final 00:18:27.859 --> 00:18:30.220 numbers, the ultimate cost came out to about 00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:34.180 $500 million per bomb used. And the military 00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:36.759 managed to fund this vast enterprise entirely 00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:39.200 without alerting the public or congressional 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:41.980 oversight. They hid the money in black budgets 00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:44.420 under the most aggressively boring bureaucratic 00:18:44.420 --> 00:18:47.640 names imaginable, like expediting production. 00:18:47.940 --> 00:18:50.059 And that intense secrecy and unlimited funding 00:18:50.059 --> 00:18:52.779 shaped the project's lasting legacy. Manhattan 00:18:52.779 --> 00:18:55.640 Project birthed what we now call Big Science. 00:18:55.849 --> 00:18:58.970 Meaning what? Well, before 1942, scientific research 00:18:58.970 --> 00:19:01.170 was mostly conducted by small teams of professors 00:19:01.170 --> 00:19:03.269 in university basements on shoestring budgets. 00:19:03.950 --> 00:19:06.269 Afterward, it transformed into the modern, massively 00:19:06.269 --> 00:19:08.630 -funded network of national laboratories, places 00:19:08.630 --> 00:19:11.529 like Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Los Alamos. It led 00:19:11.529 --> 00:19:13.289 to the creation of the Atomic Energy Commission 00:19:13.289 --> 00:19:16.589 and the dawn of nuclear medicine, utilizing radioisotopes 00:19:16.589 --> 00:19:18.789 for cancer diagnosis and treatment. But there's 00:19:18.789 --> 00:19:22.339 a downside, too. A major one. It left a dark 00:19:22.339 --> 00:19:25.079 legacy of severe environmental contamination, 00:19:25.680 --> 00:19:27.859 most notably the millions of gallons of highly 00:19:27.859 --> 00:19:31.259 radioactive waste still sitting in aging underground 00:19:31.259 --> 00:19:34.450 storage tanks at Hanford today. It's a fascinating 00:19:34.450 --> 00:19:38.230 complex paradox. The exact same military black 00:19:38.230 --> 00:19:41.269 budget, the exact same extreme secrecy that created 00:19:41.269 --> 00:19:43.769 the most destructive weapon in human history, 00:19:44.269 --> 00:19:47.009 simultaneously fast -tracked civilian supercomputing 00:19:47.009 --> 00:19:49.990 and life -saving medical therapies. How did this 00:19:49.990 --> 00:19:52.509 framework permanently alter how modern scientific 00:19:52.509 --> 00:19:55.009 research is conducted? It proved unequivocally 00:19:55.009 --> 00:19:57.390 that if a government throws enough money, industrial 00:19:57.390 --> 00:19:59.789 resources and brilliant minds at an impossible 00:19:59.789 --> 00:20:02.700 problem, it can be solved in record time. But 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:04.720 it also fundamentally severed the link between 00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:07.319 scientific discovery and public consent. Interesting. 00:20:07.740 --> 00:20:10.079 The physicists at Los Alamos proved that humanity 00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:12.339 could harness the fundamental power of the universe. 00:20:12.980 --> 00:20:15.119 But the military framework proved that the scientists 00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:17.160 themselves would not get to dictate how that 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.539 power was deployed. It permanently altered the 00:20:19.539 --> 00:20:21.880 power dynamic between the scientific community 00:20:21.880 --> 00:20:24.279 and the state. To quickly recap this incredible 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:26.619 journey for you listening, we started with a 00:20:26.619 --> 00:20:28.660 theoretical physics letter warning the president, 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:33.180 which triggered a frantic secret race. That race 00:20:33.180 --> 00:20:36.839 spawned a two billion dollar hidden empire, birthed 00:20:36.839 --> 00:20:39.480 massive secret cities, employed a hundred and 00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.079 thirty thousand unwitting workers who were kept 00:20:42.079 --> 00:20:44.779 completely in the dark and forever altered the 00:20:44.779 --> 00:20:46.920 geopolitical and scientific landscape of the 00:20:46.920 --> 00:20:49.319 world. It's a monumental achievement of engineering 00:20:49.319 --> 00:20:52.619 that leaves us with profound lingering questions 00:20:52.619 --> 00:20:55.279 about responsibility and control. And I want 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:57.480 to leave you with one final provocative thought 00:20:57.480 --> 00:21:00.440 to mull over regarding that exact point. We discussed 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.740 the unstoppable momentum of the project. Well, 00:21:02.779 --> 00:21:04.420 in the final weeks before the bombs were dropped 00:21:04.420 --> 00:21:06.660 on Japan, a group of scientists put together 00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:09.299 what became known as the Franck Report, alongside 00:21:09.299 --> 00:21:12.240 the Szilard petition. Dozens of the very same 00:21:12.240 --> 00:21:14.440 physicists and chemists who had dedicated years 00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:16.880 of their lives to building these weapons drafted 00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:19.119 urgent petitions to the president. Desperate 00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:22.500 petitions. Yeah. They were warning the government 00:21:22.500 --> 00:21:25.059 about the moral responsibility of using the bomb. 00:21:25.559 --> 00:21:27.960 They were pleading for a non -lethal demonstration 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:31.000 on a barren island to frighten Japan into surrendering 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:33.240 rather than launching a surprise attack on a 00:21:33.240 --> 00:21:35.579 populated city. Think about the weight of that. 00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:38.329 The greatest minds of a generation worked around 00:21:38.329 --> 00:21:41.049 the clock for years to solve the impossible physics 00:21:41.049 --> 00:21:43.930 of this weapon. But when they suddenly realized 00:21:43.930 --> 00:21:46.529 the terrifying political reality of their creation, 00:21:46.910 --> 00:21:48.990 they found they were completely powerless to 00:21:48.990 --> 00:21:51.670 hit the brakes. What happens when the creators 00:21:51.670 --> 00:21:54.250 of a technology realize they no longer control 00:21:54.250 --> 00:21:56.569 how it is used? It's like we talked about at 00:21:56.569 --> 00:21:58.589 the very beginning. They managed to assemble 00:21:58.589 --> 00:22:01.329 the airplane mid -flight while blindfolded. But 00:22:01.329 --> 00:22:03.369 once the blindfolds came off, they realized they 00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:06.460 weren't the ones in the cockpit. profoundly sobering 00:22:06.460 --> 00:22:09.079 realization and one that remains incredibly relevant 00:22:09.079 --> 00:22:11.819 as we navigate the rapid advancement of emerging 00:22:11.819 --> 00:22:13.640 technologies today. Thank you for joining us 00:22:13.640 --> 00:22:14.859 on this deep dive. Take care.