Here is a dilemma I face. Israel strove hard to obtain a nuclear weapons capability under cover of a nuclear energy story (even though it never built a nuclear electricity plant). Much has been written about the tale of Dimona and much is clear, but (as is true for all
Historian James Mahaffey has a knack for sharp insights well expressed. This is a footnote of his, talking about the time it took to run the first tiny experimental reactor, from December 2, 1942, and be certain that a big reactor could be built: It is important to note the
Raja Ramanna led the team that tested India’s first nuclear device in 1974. Perhaps he learned dissimulation from an early atomic spy for the Russians, Canadian Alan Nunn May: … in 1946 Raja Ramanna was being guided in his doctoral research by the head of the Department of Physics at
Francis (Franz) Simon was a German-born chemist and physicist who emigrated to England. He invented the crucial gaseous diffusion method of uranium enrichment. He doesn’t figure much in my story of power reactors but, to be on the safe side, I dutifully read a fairly recent biography by a Canadian
Illinois historian Eric Mogren now researches bow hunting (according to his university’s web page on him) but in 2002 he wrote an illuminating history of uranium mill tailings (i.e. the sandy residues of mining the mineral). This involves more detail than my general history can cover, but I did enjoy
Jacob Hamblin, a historian in Oregon, unearths the most fascinating archival material. Preparing for the BEAR meeting of oceanographers, Vine wrote a memorandum in February 1956 outlining what he considered to be the basic conundrum of waste disposal. He captured the uncertainty by describing the problem as “somewhere between nonexistent
If you’re seeking the truth when writing history, rather than expressing a view as in a polemic, it can be difficult to judge your references. Bharat Karnad is a research professor in New Delhi, with impeccable credentials including many governmental assignments and roles. In 2005, he published his 575-page magnum
I’ve been quiet on this blog over the last quarter of 2021, partly with good reason. The reason: I’ve been drafting chapters that have turned into boggy messes. When I possess a coherent, plotted chapter, I know precisely what research material belongs to the book and what is left over.
Here’s a throwaway tiny piece of nuclear news from the February 1954 edition of Nucleonics, the world’s first nuclear trade journal, then in its infancy: India, a poor, undeveloped country, was setting up a swanky nuclear institute near Bombay. “A 1.2 Mev Cockcroft-Walton generator is operating,” the article informs us,
When the United Kingdom formally commenced its atomic pursuits at the beginning of 1946, before the expert triumvirate of Cockcroft, Hinton, and Penney established their empires, plenty of naive ideas were tossed around. Here is one expressed in a meeting of a secretive Cabinet committee (called Gen 112) on January