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With the Quebec Agreement established, Wallace Akers who was the director of the Tube Alloys project summoned James Chadwick, Marcus Oliphant, Francis Simon, and Rudolf Peierls to the United States. They arrived the day the agreement was signed ready to be put to work with the task to assist the Manhattan Project in any way possible. The Quebec Agreement brought with it a Combined Policy Committee that included Canada, Great Britain, and the US. This allowed each countries representatives to coordinate and combine all info brought about through cooperation. Akers was generally disliked and the American's refused to move forward with collaboration unless a top British scientist who was "accepted and sound of judgment" was appointed. Thus Chadwick was put in charge as Britain's technical advisor for the Combined Policy Committee, and instated as the head of the British Mission. [1]

With the committee dispute settled collaboration could once again take place. Chadwick wanted to involve as may British scientist as possible so long as General Leslie Groves accepted them. Grove's made it apparent that he would not accept any scientists who were not British citizens. Chadwick's first choice, Joseph Rotblat refused to give up his Polish citizenship. Chadwick then turned to Otto Frisch who to Chadwick's surprise accepted becoming a British citizen right away and began the screening process so that he could make way for America. Chadwick spent the first few weeks of November 1943 acquiring a clear picture of the extensive Manhattan Project. He realized the scale of such sites as Oak Ridge, Tennessee which was the new headquarters of the project, and could safely conclude that without similar industrial sited being found in Germany the chances of the Nazi atomic bomb project being successful was very low.[2]

With Chadwick involved the main goal was to show that the Quebec Agreement was not pointless for the Americans to accept. It was Britain's duty to follow Grove's plan for success while speeding along the process. Chadwick used this opportunity to give as many young British scientists experience as possible so that they might carry that experience to post war Britain[3] Chadwick eventually convinced General Groves of Rotblat's integrity to the cause and this led to Rotblat being accepted to the Manhattan Project without renouncing his nationality. Rotblat had been left in charge of the Tube Alloys research and brought with him his research done while head of the operation Chadwick had left to him.[4]




James Chadwick had originally voiced his concerns about the need for such pure plutonium to make a feasible bomb. He also suspected that the gun method of detonation for a plutonium bomb would lead to proposed premature detonations. After Chadwick observed Oppenheimer at Los Alamos he learned of their proposed bomb design which they were calling an Implosion. The sub-critical mass of plutonium was supposed to be surrounded by explosives that were arranged to detonate simultaneously. This would cause the Plutonium core to be compressed and become critical. This design solved Chadwick's worries of purity because it did not require the level that would be needed for the gun bomb design. Chadwick took this info with him and described the method to Mark Oliphant whom then took the info with him to England. [5]


Near Christmas in 1938 Dr. Otto Hahn, in his laboratory in Berlin-Dahlem, successfully split a uranium nucleus into two. This experiment was performed wit professor Lise Meitner who was an Austrian physicist. They worked on bombarding the metal Uranium with an atomic particle called a neutron. These uncharged particles could not be repelled by protons like in Ernest Rutherford's gold foil experiment performed earlier.[6] The process discovered that day would come to be know as "nuclear fission" due to the resemblance of the process by which bacteria replicate [7]


The neutrons used to cause fission in a uranium critical mass are considered slow neutrons. However when neutrons are released during a fission reaction they are released as fast neutrons which have much more speed and energy. Thus it was understood that with the need to create a sustained chain reaction, there existed a need for a moderator of some type. The moderator would be used to contain and slow down the fast neutrons until they reached a useable energy level.[8] The College de France found that water and graphite could be used as an acceptable moderator. [9]

One of the more common methods that were decided to be studied for practical use would be gaseous diffusion. The process of gaseous diffusion uses the difference in weight of U-235 and U-238. The molecules were to be passed through tube that had a porous barrier. The lighter isotope would over time pass through. This process was practical, but required that this be done many times in a row to produce anything useful. One of the biggest obstacles faced by those developing the process was to find a suitable porous material for the barrier and also to find a way to contain uranium hexafluoride gas. Most early work was performed at the University of Birmingham and Imperial Chemical Industries. The process led to some problems, mainly how to construct an apparatus that would be sufficient enough to produce the separated Uranium in enough volume. Both University of Birmingham and Imperial Chemical Industries produced a preliminary prototype before scientist in New York produced a slightly better model. General Leslie Groves ordered to construction of the first gaseous diffusion plant which was to be named K-25 and be built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Upon construction it was the largest roofed building in the world. K-25 would be the stepping stone to the eventual Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant. The electromagnetic separation technique was developed by Alfred Nier.[10]


Britain's plans to build a build an atomic bomb took off during their war effort. There was much debate on whether or not a bomb of this capacity was even probable, let alone possible. The British government submitted a review on the possibility of producing a bomb. The report ultimately stated that if there were even a sliver of a chance that the bomb effort could produce a weapon with such power, then every effort should be made to make sure Britain did not fall behind.[11] The decision to take on the project of creating an atomic bomb was made on July 2nd, 1941. This was ten days after the Nazi's invaded the Soviet Union. The day after Winston Churchill was noted saying, "the Russian danger is our danger."[12] At this point Britain had feared the German effort was attempting to provide its country with an atomic bomb as well, and thus they needed to finish theirs first. The British formed the Tube alloys project with the subject of counter espionage in mind. Britain attempted to make its Security Service, or MI5 bulletproof and widened its scope to include the Soviets espionage efforts as well.


Bibliography

  • Gowing, Margaret (1974). Independence and Deterrence: Volume 2 Policy and Execution. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333166957.
  • Brown, Andrew (1997). The Neutron and the Bomb. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198539924.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ References

  1. ^ Gowing, Margaret (1964). Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939-1945. Macmillan Publishers. pp. 169–173.
  2. ^ Brown, Andrew (1997). The Neutron and the Bomb. Oxford University Press. pp. 250–253.
  3. ^ Brown, Andrew (1997). The Neutron and the Bomb. Oxford University Press. p. 254.
  4. ^ Brown, Andrew (1997). The Neutron and the Bomb. Oxford University Press. pp. 254–255.
  5. ^ Brown, Andrew (1997). The Neutron and the Bomb. Oxford University Press. pp. 253–254.
  6. ^ Clark, Ronald (1961). The Birth of the Bomb: Britain’s part in the weapon that changed the World. London: Phoenix House. pp. 6–10.
  7. ^ Clark, Ronald (1961). The Birth of the Bomb: Britain’s part in the weapon that changed the World. London: Phoenix House. p. 13.
  8. ^ Gowing, Margaret (1974). Independence and Deterrence: Volume 2 Policy and Execution. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 264–263.
  9. ^ Clark, Ronald (1961). The Birth of the Bomb: Britain’s part in the weapon that changed the World. London: Phoenix House. p. 21-22.
  10. ^ Gosling, F.G. (1999). The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb. Washington: History Division, Department of Energy. pp. 5–6.
  11. ^ Brinson, Chairmian; Dove, Richard (2014). A Matter of Intelligence: MI5 and the Surveillance of Anti Nazi Refugees 1933-50. Manchester university Press. pp. 193–195.
  12. ^ Brinson, Chairmian; Dove, Richard (2014). A Matter of Intelligence: MI5 and the Surveillance of Anti Nazi Refugees 1933-50. Manchester university Press. pp. 193–195.
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