Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I just found this while cruising the news sites

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/09/25/how-adolf-hitlers-plan-to-build-atomic-bomb-and-destroy-london-was-only-thwarted-when-ferry-carrying-key-ingredients-sunk.html

I make no claim to be a nuke, but as I recall the German use of heavy water in the making of a nuclear weapon was discounted as being a red herring. I know there are folks here with a LOT more knowledge than I on the subject. Was Hitler closer to making The Bomb than I thought? Or are the ideas on this article a little off whack?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I just found this while cruising the news sites

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/09/25/how-adolf-hitlers-plan-to-build-atomic-bomb-and-destroy-london-was-only-thwarted-when-ferry-carrying-key-ingredients-sunk.html

I make no claim to be a nuke, but as I recall the German use of heavy water in the making of a nuclear weapon was discounted as being a red herring. I know there are folks here with a LOT more knowledge than I on the subject. Was Hitler closer to making The Bomb than I thought? Or are the ideas on this article a little off whack?

quote:

but as I recall the German use of heavy water in the making of a nuclear weapon was discounted as being a red herring.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Insano

I'm not claiming to be an expert but the basics are that the Germans were pursuing a fusion (hydrogen) bomb rather than a fission (uranium) bomb as developed by the US and later Russia. The fusion bomb was later developed in the early 1950's so was presumably the more difficult of the two paths to take.

Heavy water as was produced in Norway was valuable as source from which to extract heavy hydrogen. Heavy hydrogen is hydrogen atoms with 1 or 2 neutrons instead of the vastly more common zero neutrons. This becomes the basis of the nuclear explosive charge in the hydrogen bomb.

My take is that the loss of the heavy water stock was no doubt a huge setback to the German nuclear program. However it wouldn't have mattered because they wouldn't have developed a functioning hydrogen bomb before the war ended anyway. What's more interesting and really fodder for discussion in my opinion is this: I could make the argument that the destruction of the heavy water actually prolonged the war. The basis of this being that this event largely caused the Germans to abandon their nuclear program rather than diverting scientific and industrial resources to continuing and eventually scaling up the program.

The hows and the whys of pursuing fusion over fission would be interesting to know. I don't know the reason(s) the Germans set off down this path. The end result is a fusion weapon can be made much more powerful than a fission weapon. Perhaps this was a contributor. The Germans presumably had access to uranium with European sources in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria even during those years.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

As for heavy water, there are two types: deuterium with one extra neutron in the hydrogen (making the atom twice as heavy) and tritium with two extra neutrons. I hadn't heard before now about needing heavy water to get the enriched hydrogen, but I know heavy water is used in nuclear reactors to transfer the heat from the rods in the core to the tubes where the steam is created. I presume that heavy water can carry more heat before turning to steam so it is easier to pump around to cool the core.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

I just found this while cruising the news sites

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/09/25/how-adolf-hitlers-plan-to-build-atomic-bomb-and-destroy-london-was-only-thwarted-when-ferry-carrying-key-ingredients-sunk.html

I make no claim to be a nuke, but as I recall the German use of heavy water in the making of a nuclear weapon was discounted as being a red herring. I know there are folks here with a LOT more knowledge than I on the subject. Was Hitler closer to making The Bomb than I thought? Or are the ideas on this article a little off whack?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rafid

The most advanced German nuclear experiment conducted as late as February 1945 was indeed such a heavy water reactor using natural uranium. It was still below critical mass hence not able to keep up a chain reaction. It was by no means a production run but still an early scientific experiment to get more knowledge (for example on the cross section of uranium).

In theory: Would such a reactor be above critical mass (it was not) and run for a prolonged time (there was no time) it would produce plutonium to use in a fission bomb. But to get some scope: The Germans did NOT achieve a stable chain reaction in early 1945 while the US did so in December 1942. Even with its much bigger industrial capacity it took the US another 2 1/2 years to build a bomb. I fail to see how a ship sunk in 1944 made much of a difference in this calculation.

Newspaper articles or TV shows about "the Germans almost got the bomb in time" are always extreme exaggerations. The German "Uranprojekt" was extremely small in scale, not very advanced and aimed for its entire duration to get any reactor going. A prominent book on the subject is called “Hitler's uranium club” which is an accurate description of the small band of scientists and their ressources that were commited to the subject.

Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!

A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE