Resource Letter MP-4: The Manhattan Project and related nuclear research

Since the publication of the first Resource Letter on this topic in 2005, awareness of nuclear issues has waxed and waned. Perhaps the biggest change since then has been the increasing awareness of climate change and the role nuclear power will have to play as we transition away from fossil fuels. Tempering this are, as always, concerns with possible accidents, dual-use technologies, the politics of waste disposal, and developments surrounding nuclear weapons. North Korea continues to enhance both its weapons and delivery systems (Ref. 120); enrichment activities continue in Iran; “established” nuclear powers are undertaking expensive, long-term expansions and upgrades of their arsenals (Ref. 123); arms control agreements are being allowed to expire; and sabre-rattling associated with Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine has the world potentially closer to a nuclear exchange than at any time since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s; the world faces many nuclear issues and choices (Ref. 36). Progress on nuclear arms limitations and approaches to disarmament seems to be moving backwards.

In combination with Resource Letters MP-1,¹ M-2,² and MP-3,³ the sources listed here bring the total to over 500. Those listed here include some that should have been included in these earlier Resource Letters, but many are recent; interest in the science, personalities, and legacy of the Manhattan Project continue apace. As with the previous installments in this series, I have had to draw the line somewhere as to what topics, particularly of the “postwar” type, to exclude or touch upon only minimally for sake of completeness. For example, the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters are not strictly Manhattan issues, and histories of postwar weapons systems and tests could be the subject of their own extensive bibliographies, although I do include some sources along these lines likely to be of wide interest. Also, I largely eschew sources whose focus is more towards historical/sociological interpretations of nuclear issues, although this too is a gray area.

The organization of this Resource Letter follows that of Refs. 1–3; within each section, books are listed first, followed by journal and magazine articles; where appropriate, sources are cross-referenced to the earlier installments in this series. Section III lists video and websites. The web addresses given here were correct as of the time of publications but of course can be volatile.

• 1.

  “Resource Letter MP-1: The Manhattan Project and related nuclear research,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 73(9), 805–811 (2005).10.1119/1.1949629

• 2.

  “Resource Letter MP-2: The Manhattan Project and related nuclear research,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 79(2), 151–163 (2011).10.1119/1.3533209

• 3.

  “Resource Letter MP-3: The Manhattan Project and related nuclear research,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 84(10), 734–745 (2016).10.1119/1.4961499

• 4.

  The History and Science of the Manhattan Project, B. C. Reed (Springer, Berlin, 2019).

• 5.

  Manhattan Project: The Story of the Century, B. C. Reed (Springer, Berlin, 2020).

• 6.

  The Manhattan Project: A Very Brief Introduction to the Physics of Nuclear Weapons, B. C. Reed (Morgan and Claypool, San Rafael, CA, as part of IoP Concise Physics, 2017).

• 7.

  The Neutron's Long Shadow: Legacies of Nuclear Explosives Production in the Manhattan Project, M. Miller (Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA, 2017).

• 8.

  Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World, A. Pais (Oxford U.P., Oxford, 1986).

• 9.

  One World or None, D. Masters and K. Way (eds.) (Latimer House, London, 1947).

• 10.

  Thorium Research in the Manhattan Project Era, K. F. Sorensen (University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2014).

• 11.

  The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age, S. Olson (W. W. Norton, New York, 2020).

• 12.

  Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, K. Brown (Oxford U. P., Oxford, 2013).

• 13.

  Polonium in the Playhouse: The Manhattan Project's Secret Chemistry Work in Dayton, Ohio, L. C. Thomas (Trillium, Columbus, OH, 2017).

• 14.

  Images of America: The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site, E. Toomey (Arcadia, Charleston, SC, 2015).

• 15.

  Tinian and the Bomb: Project Alberta and Operation Centerboard, D. A. Farrell (Micronesian Publications, Tinian Island, 2018).

• 16.

  On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, M. S. Gerber , 3rd ed. (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2007).

• 17.

  The Manhattan Project Trinity Test: Witnessing the Bomb in New Mexico, E. K. Österreich (The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2020).

• 18.

  Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb: A Complete History of the Trinity Test Site, William S. Loring (McFarland, Jefferson, NC, 2019).

• 19.

  “Project SOLO and the Seborers: On the Trail of a Fourth Soviet Spy at Los Alamos,” H. Klehr and E. Haynes , Stud. Intell. 63(3), 1–14 (2019).

• 20.

  “Rousing the dragon: Polonium production for neutron generators in the Manhattan Project,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 87(5), 377–383 (2019).10.1119/1.5094138

• 21.

  “A diamond in dogpatch: The 75th anniversary of the graphite reactor,” S. R. Greene , Nucl. News 61(12), 38–43 and 61(13) 28–31 (2018).

• 22.

  “The fogging of photographic film by radioactive contamination in cardboard packaging materials,” J. H. Webb , Phys. Rev. 74(3), 375–380 (1949).10.1103/PhysRev.76.375

• 23.

  “Modeling the effects of the Trinity test,” T. Semkow , P. Parekh , and D. Haines , in Applied Modeling and Computations in Nuclear Science, American Chemical Society Symposium Series 945 (American Chemical Society, Washington, 2006), pp. 142–159.

• 24.

  “Chernobyl and trinity—Counting the Curies,” B. C. Reed , Federation Am. Sci. Public Interest Rep. 69(2), 12–15 (2016).

• 25.

  “Proceeding in the dark. Innovation, project management and the making of the atomic bomb,” S. Lenfle . This “working paper” by a French professor of business explores how the management of the Manhattan Project differed in important ways from conventional project management procedures, such as having research, development, construction, and operations proceeding in parallel, accompanied by frequent revisions to processes and designs as information and experience was acquired (e.g., isotope separation methods and the spontaneous fission crisis; implosion). Available at http://www.sylvainlenfle.fr/images/Publications/Proceeding_in_the_dark_Lenfle_WP08_001.pdf

• 26.

  “Uranium price expectations and stabilization policy formation in the Manhattan Project: An institutional economics approach,” A. D. M. Espana , J. Nucl. Eng. Radiation Sci. 9(3), 031601 (16pp) (2023).

• 27.

  “The ongoing story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” B. C. Reed , Am. Sci. 106(2), 88–94 (2018).10.1511/2018.106.2.88

• 28.

  “Troy ounces (or tons) of silver,” D. S. Edmonds , Am. J. Phys. 69(6), 629–630 (2001).10.1119/1.1370377

• 29.

  “The Smyth report,” H. D. Smyth , Princeton Univ. Library Chronicle 37(3), 173–189 (1976).10.2307/26404011

• 30.

  “A brief history of radiation protection at HEW 1943–1960,” D. Marsh , Moderator 27(2), 4–6 (2021).

• 31.

  “Early reactors: From Fermi's water boiler to novel power prototypes,” M. E. Bunker , Los Alamos Sci. 7, 124–131 (1983).

• 32.

  The Discovery of Nuclear Fission: A Documentary History, H. G. Graetzer and D. L. Anderson (Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1971).

• 33.

  Scientists in Power, S. R. Weart (Harvard, Cambridge, 1979).

• 34.

  The Discovery of Isotopes: A Complete Compilation, M. Thoennessen (Springer, Basel, 2016).

• 35.

  The Age of Innocence: Nuclear Physics between the First and Second World Wars, R. Stuewer (Oxford U. P., Oxford, 2018).

• 36.

  Nuclear Choices for the Twenty-First Century, R. Wolfson and F. Dalnoki-Veress (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2021).

• 37.

  “Explosive properties of reactor-grade plutonium,” J. C. Mark , with an Appendix by Frank von Hippel and Edward Lyman, Sci. Global Secur. 17(2), 170–185 (2009).10.1080/08929880903368690

• 38.

  “An act of creation: The Meitner-Frisch interpretation of nuclear fission,” R. Stuewer , in Traditions and Transformations in the History of Quantum Physics: Third International Conference on the History of Quantum Physics, edited by S. Katzir , C. Lehner , and J. Renn , Berlin, June 28–July 2, 2010 (Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, Proceedings 5, 2013).

• 39.

  “Determining optimal fallout shelter times following a nuclear detonation,” M. B. Dillon , Proc. Roy. Soc. A470(2163), 2013693 (2014).

• 40.

  “Science and politics: The discovery of nuclear fission 75 years ago,” R. L. Sime , Ann. Phys. (Berlin) 526(3-4), A27–A31 (2014).10.1002/andp.201400805

• 41.

  “An examination of the potential fission-bomb weaponizability of nuclides other than 235U and 239Pu,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 85(1), 38–44 (2017).10.1119/1.4966630

• 42.

  “Why only U-235 and Pu-239? Classroom-level graphs for understanding heavy-element weaponizability factors,” B. C. Reed , Phys. Teach. 58(8), 556–559 (2020).10.1119/10.0002376

• 43.

  “A physicists guide to The Los Alamos Primer,” B. C. Reed , Phys. Scr. 91(11), 113022 (2016).

• 44.

  “Revisiting The Los Alamos Primer,” B. C. Reed , Physics Today 70(9), 42–49 (2017).10.1063/PT.3.3692

• 45.

  “A powerful graphical display of technical information: Robert Serber's plot of physical conditions inside a nuclear explosion,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 88(7), 565–567 (2020).10.1119/10.0001206

• 46.

  “A toy model for the yield of a tamped fission bomb,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 86(2), 105–109 (2018).10.1119/1.5009102

• 47.

  “The fortuitous chain reaction,” J. M. Pearson , Am. J. Phys. 87(4), 264–269 (2019).10.1119/1.5089204

• 48.

  “Calculating fissility without Legendre polynomials: A walk in the woods,” J. M. Pearson, Am. J. Phys. 87(9), 739–744 (2019).

• 49.

  “Comment on “Calculating fissility without Legendre polynomials,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 87(10), 785–786 (2019).10.1119/1.5124223

• 50.

  “Composite cores and tamper yield: Lesser-known aspects of Manhattan Project fission bombs,” B. C. Reed , Am. J. Phys. 88(2), 108–114 (2020).10.1119/10.0000035

• 51.

  “Pedagogical reconstruction of Bohr and Wheeler's fission-barrier graph,” B. C. Reed , Eur. J. Phys. 41(5), 055801 (10pp) (2020).

• 52.

  “An inter-country comparison of nuclear pile development during World War II,” B. C. Reed , Eur. Phys. J. - H. 46, 15 (22pp) (2021).

• 53.

  “Special issue on the Manhattan Project nuclear science and technology development at Los Alamos National Laboratory,” Nucl. Technol. 207(S1), S1–S396 (2021).

• 54.

  “Manhattan Project 1940s research on the prompt fission neutron spectrum,” M. B. Chadwick and R. Capote , Front. Phys. 11, 1105593 (2023).10.3389/fphy.2023.1105593

• 55.

  “The earliest DT nuclear fusion discoveries,” M. B. Chadwick et al., This paper appeared in preprint form as this Resource Letter was being prepared; it is a Los Alamos report available at https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04206. At Los Alamos during the war, considerable research was carried out on fusion reactions in response to the recognition of the possibility of fusion weapons, an issue which arose during a conference held at Berkeley in the summer of 1942. This paper describes pre-war, wartime, and postwar cross-section measurements, which are in good agreement with modern values. An interesting revelation is that DT fusion was likely first detected in an experiment performed at the University of Michigan in 1938, an event which may have played a role in the 1942 Berkeley discussion. A related article can be found in Nucl. News 66(4), 70–77 (2023), and an audio clip extracted from a 1986 interview of Emil Konopinski discussing hydrogen reactions can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5cQgu5xCnc. (A)

• 56.

  “Comments on the physics of The Frisch-Peierls memorandum,” B. C. Reed , Nucl. Technol. 208(12), 1890–1893 (2022).10.1080/00295450.2022.2084582

• 57.

  “Unclassified controlled nuclear information and restricted data concerning U. S. calutrons,” A. S. Quist , Oak Ridge National Laboratory Report ORCA-3 (1999).

• 58.

  Atomic Bomb Scientists Memoires 1939–1945. Interviews with Werner Heisenberg, Paul Harteck , Lew Kowarski , Leslie R. Groves , Aristid von Grosse , and C. E. Larson , J. J. Ermenc (Meckler, Westport, CT, 1989).

• 59.

  The Bethe-Peierls Correspondence, S. Lee (World Scientific, Singapore, 2008).

• 60.

  Atomic rivals: A candid memoir of rivalries among the Allies over the bomb, B. Goldschmidt (Rutgers U. P., New Brunswick, NJ, 1990).

• 61.

  Churchill's Bomb: How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race, G. Farmelo (Basic Books, New York, 2013).

• 62.

  Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War, K. Ruane (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2016).

• 63.

  The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age, G. Segrè and B. Hoerlin (Henry Holt, New York, 2016).

• 64.

  The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age, D. N. Schwartz (Basic Books, New York, 2017).

• 65.

  Half-Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy, F. Close (Basic Books, New York, 2015).

• 66.

  Trinity: The Treachery and Pursuit of the Most Dangerous Spy in History, F. Close (Penguin, London, 2020).

• 67.

  The Man From the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann, A. Bhattacharya (W. W. Norton, New York, 2021).

• 68.

  True Genius: The Life and Work of Richard Garwin, The most influential scientist you've never heard of, J. N. Shurkin (Prometheus, Amherst, New York, 2017).

• 69.

  General George C. Marshall and the Atomic Bomb, F. A. Settle (Praeger, Santa Barbara, CA, 2016).

• 70.

  Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist, J. Conant (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2017).

• 71.

  Achieving the Rare: Robert F. Christy's Journey in Physics and Beyond, I.-J. Christy (World Scientific, Singapore, 2013).

• 72.

  Sam Goudsmit and the Hunt for Hitler's Atomic Bomb, M. van Calmthout , translated by Michael Horn (Prometheus, Amherst, NY, 2018).

• 73.

  Atomic Bill: A Journalist's Dangerous Ambition in the Shadow of the Bomb, V. Kiernan (Three Hills, Ithaca, NY, 2022).

• 74.

  “Physics at Columbia University: The genesis of the nuclear energy project,” E. Fermi , Phys. Today 8(11), 12–16 (1955).10.1063/1.3061815

• 75.

  “Reminiscences of the early days of fission,” H. Barschall , Phys. Today 40(6), 27–32 (1987).10.1063/1.881075

• 76.

  “John Wheeler's H-bomb blues,” A. Wellerstein , Phys. Today 72(12), 42–51 (2019).10.1063/PT.3.4364

• 77.

  “Enrico Fermi's discovery of neutron-induced artificial radioactivity: A case of emanation from divine providence,” F. Guerra , M. Leone , and N. Robotti , Phys. Perspect. 22(3), 129–161 (2020).10.1007/s00016-020-00258-w

• 78.

  “Drama around a wartime Heisenberg letter,” S. Schwarz , Phys. Perspect. 24(1), 72–92 (2022).10.1007/s00016-021-00285-1

• 79.

  “Not just boys at via Pansiperna: Women at the Royal Institute in Rome,” M. Focaccia , Phys. Perspect. 24(2-3), 154–177 (2022).10.1007/s00016-022-00291-x

• 80.

  “Oppenheimer and the cosmos,” V. Trimble , Hist. Philos. Phys. Newsletter XV(3) 1, 6–12 (2022).

• 81.

  Selected works of Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich. Volume II: Particles, nuclei, and the Universe, J. P. Ostriker (ed.) (Princeton U. P., Princeton, 1993).

• 82.

  Atomic Energy in Canada, C. Kennedy (Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., Ottawa, 1956).

• 83.

  Canada's Nuclear Story, W. Eggleston (Clarke, Irwin & Co., Toronto, 1965).

• 84.

  Canada Enters the Nuclear Age: A Technical History of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (McGill-Queen's U. P., Montréal and Kingston, Ontario, 1997).

• 85.

  Montréal and the Bomb, G. Sabourin (Baraka Books, Montréal, 2021).

• 86.

  Israel and the Bomb, A. Cohen (Columbia U. P., New York, 1998).

• 87.

  The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, N. Bascomb (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2016).

• 88.

  The Uranium Club: Unearthing the Relics of the Nazi Nuclear Program, M. E. Hiebert (Chicago Review Press, Chicago, 2023).

• 89.

  Farm Hall and the German Atomic Project of World War II: A Dramatic History, D. C. Cassidy (Springer International, 2017).

• 90.

  Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program, D. Albright and A. Stricker (Institute for Science and International Security Press, Washington, DC, 2018).

• 91.

  “The mechanism of nuclear fission (Part I),” Y. Zeldovich and Y. Khariton , Sov. Phys. Usp. 26(3), 266–278 (1983).10.1070/PU1983v026n03ABEH004357

• 92.

  “Getting even with Heisenberg,” N. P. Landsman , Stud. Hist. Philos. Mod. Phys. 33(2), 297–325 (2002).10.1016/S1355-2198(02)00015-1

• 93.

  “Tracking the journey of a uranium cube,” T. Koeth and M. Hiebert , Phys. Today 72(5), 36–43 (2019).10.1063/PT.3.4202

• 94.

  “The occupation of Niels Bohr's Institute: December 6, 1943 - February 3, 1944,” S. Schwarz , Phys. Perspect. 23(1), 49–82 (2021).10.1007/s00016-021-00270-8

• 95.

  In 2022, the German-language journal Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte/History of Science and Humanities [vol. 45, issue 1 (2022)] published a series of five English-language papers on Farm Hall by historians of science Dieter Hoffmann, Ryan Dahn, Mark Walker, David Cassidy, and Gerald Holton. These were originally presented at a session of an American Physical Society meeting held in March 2021 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Farm Hall; abstracts can be found at https://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR21/Session/C62.

• 96.

  “Why Hitler did not have atomic bombs,” M. Popp , J. Nucl. Eng. 2(1), 9–27 (2021).10.3390/jne2010002

• 97.

  “A new approach on modeling of the B-VIII, The ultimate achievement of the second ‘Uranverain,’” M. P. Pešić , Nucl. Technol. Radiat. Protection 33(1), 1–23 (2023).

• 98.

  “Laboratory life instead of nuclear weapons: A new perspective on the German uranium club,” C. Forstner , Phys. Perspect. 24(4), 181–207 (2022).10.1007/s00016-022-00294-8

• 99.

  “Science and politics: The discovery of nuclear fission 75 years ago,” R. L. Sime , Ann. Phys. (Berlin) 526(3-4), A27–A31 (2014).10.1002/andp.201400805

• 100.

  “Walther Bothe's graphite: Physics, impurities, and blame in the German nuclear program,” B. C. Reed , Ann. Phys. (Berlin) 532(7), 200121 (2020).

• 101.

  “Zum unvollendeten ersten deutschen Kernreaktor 1942/1944,” L. Koester , Naturwiss. 67(12), 573–575 (1980).10.1007/BF00396535

• 102.

  “Soviet uranium boosters,” R. Mellor , Phys. Today 74(7), 28–35 (2021).10.1063/PT.3.4792

• 103.

  “Crucial? helpful? practically nil”? Reality and perception of Britain's contribution to the development of nuclear weapons during the second World War,” S. Lee , Diplomacy Statecraft 33(1), 19–40 (2022).10.1080/09592296.2022.2041805

• 104.

  The Traveler's Guide to Nuclear Weapons: A Journey Through America's Cold War Battlefields, J. M. Maroncelli and T. L. Karpin (Historical Odyssey Publishers, Silverdale, WA, 2002).

• 105.

  100 Suns, M. Light (Knopf, New York, 2003).

• 106.

  Complex Transformation: Change in the United States Nuclear Weapons Complex from 1942 to 2015, G. C. Allen (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, South Carolina, 2016).

• 107.

  The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945, N. Tannenwald (Cambridge U. P., Cambridge, 2008).

• 108.

  One Physicist's Guide to Nuclear Weapons: A global perspective, J. Bernstein (IOP Publishing, Bristol, 2016).

• 109.

  Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian Scientists Joined Forces to Avert Some of the Greatest Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers, Siegfried S. Hecker , Ed. (Bathtub Row Press, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 2016).

• 110.

  Nuclear Weapons and Related Security Issues, P. S. Corden , A. Fainberg , D. W. Hafemeister and A. Macfarlane , eds. (American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings # 1898, Maryland, 2017).

• 111.

  The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War, F. Kaplan (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2020).

• 112.

  Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, A. Wellerstein (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2021).

• 113.

  “Oh, My darling Clementine: A detailed history and data repository of the Los Alamos plutonium fast reactor,” H. K. Patenaude and F. J. Freibert , Nuclear Technology, in press. Clementine was a liquid-mercury cooled, plutonium and uranium-fueled fast-neutron reactor developed at Los Alamos just after the end of the war, when the Manhattan Engineer District was still formally in existence. This compact device was of essentially cubical footprint of about 10-foot side length including tamper and shield materials, and operated at 25 kW. Fuel slugs were cylinders about 6 inches long and 5/8-in. in diameter. Criticality was achieved in September 1946, and the device operated until late 1952, when it was shut down due to high alpha activity in the coolant indicative of a fuel rod rupture. During its operating life, Clementine generated valuable data on fast-neutron fission spectra, cross-sections, liquid-metal cooling, breeding reactions, and materials science. This paper, which is extensively illustrated with original photos, schematics, and graphs, describes the design, construction, operation, and eventual decomissioning of this pioneering experiment. This paper was in press at the time of this writing, but an online version can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2023.2176686. (A)

• 114.

  “Terrorism potential for research reactors compared with power reactors,” G. Bunn and C. Braun , Am. Behav. Sci. 46(6), 714–726 (2003).10.1177/0002764202239150

• 115.

  “The big science of Stockpile Stewardship,” V. H. Reis , R. J. Hanrahan , and W. K. Levedahl , Phys. Today 69(8), 47–53 (2016).

• 116.

  “The secret of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,” A. Wellerstein and E. Geist , Phys. Today 70(4), 40–47 (2017).10.1063/PT.3.3524

• 117.

  “Sakharov, Gorbachev, and nuclear reductions,” F. von Hippel , Phys. Today 70(4), 49–54 (2017).

• 118.

  “The secret search for Cold War uranium in Morocco.” M. Adamson , Phys. Today 70(6), 54–60 (2017).10.1063/PT.3.3595

• 119.

  “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran,” S. D. Sagan and B. A. Valentino , Int. Security 42(1), 41–79 (2017).10.1162/ISEC_a_00284

• 120.

  “The rise, collapse, and compaction of Mt. Mantap from the 3 September 2017 North Korean nuclear test,” T. Wang , Q. Shi , M. Nikkhoo , S. Wei , S. Barbot , D. Dreger , R. Bürgmann , M. Motagh , and Q. Chen , Science 361(6398), 166–170 (2018).

• 121.

  “Getting rid of the Swedish bomb,” T. Jonter , Phys. Today 72(9), 40–47 (2019).10.1063/PT.3.4293

• 122.

  “NSF and postwar US science.” E. Gibson , Physics Today 73(5), 40–46 (2020).10.1063/PT.3.4473

• 123.

  “Who's next?” The Economist 438(9230), 16–18 (2021).

• 124.

  The October 2020 edition of Health Physics (volume 119, issue (4)) contains six openly available papers prepared by editor Steven Simon and various co-authors reporting the results of a Congressional commission established to assess the health impacts of the Trinity test, and, by extension, nuclear detonations in general. Topics covered include dose estimates from fallout, recommended exposures, and procedures for internal and external dose estimates for various fallout products. Freely available at https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/toc/2020/10000.

• 125.

  On December 16, 2022, U. S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced that the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission decision to revoke Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance had been vacated, in part because the AEC failed to follow its own rules. The DoE announcement and a link to Garnholm's order can be found at https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-granholm-statement-doe-order-vacating-1954-atomic-energy-commission-decision

• 126.

  Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation, T. Jorgensen (Princeton, 2016).

• 127.

  The Secret Project, Jonah Winter and Jeanette Winter (Beach Lane Books, New York, 2017)

• 128.

  Critical Assembly: Poems of the Manhattan Project, J. Canaday (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2017).

• 129.

  “A compendium of striking manhattan project quotes,” B. C. Reed , Hist. Phys. Newsletter XIII(3), 8–14 (2016).

• 130.

  “Nuclear cartography: Patterns in binding energies and subatomic structure,” E. C. Simpson and M. Shelley , Phys. Educ. 52, 064002 (9 pp) (2017).

• 131.

  “Uranium fission and plutonium production in the undergraduate lab,” J. V. Willigen , C. Loman , P. Thibaudier , D. B. R. A. Fokkema , and T. W. Hijman , Am. J. Phys. 88(3), 200–206 (2020).10.1119/10.0000206

• 132.

  “Estimating the yield of the Trinity test with a simple kinetic energy analysis,” B. C. Reed , Phys. Educ. 55, 033007 (3 pp) (2020).

• 133.

  “Estimating the size of Fermi's CP-1 nuclear pile: A classroom approach,” B. C. Reed , Eur. J. Phys. 42, 055801 (12 pp) (2021).

• 134.

  “Estimating the maximum visual intensity of a nuclear fireball,” B. C. Reed , Eur. J. Phys. 44(1) 015802 (4 pp) (2023).

• 135.

  “The devil's work: A Maxwell's demon model for understanding the work cost of isotope enrichment,” B. C. Reed , Phys. Soc. 52(1), 1–3 (2023).

• 136.

  Manhattan Project. This Wikipedia page gives a thorough and well-referenced survey of the Manhattan Project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project

• 137.

  The online Encyclopedia for the History of Science (ETHOS) is published by Carnegie Mellon University. This resource is intended for historians of science who specialize in one topic to have a way to quickly become familiar with how those in other areas approach their disciplines. Historian of science Alex Wellerstein (Refs. 76, 112, and 116) has an excellent survey of the Manhattan Project and its legacy as part of this site; see https://ethos.lps.library.cmu.edu/article/id/35/.

• 138.

  The U. S. Nuclear Weapons Complex, https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=16D-GF2of9UXppSRknAN_ApFpHBg&ll=27.322007519566913\%2C-85.61426514999994&z=2.

• 139.

  An interactive isotope app is available on a website of the American Nuclear Society at isotopes.ans.org.

• 140.

  The Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction is devoted to mobilizing physical scientists and engineers who are interested in nuclear arms-control policy. The Coalition is supported by the American Physical Society and the Carnegie Endowment, and offers colloquia, fellowships, and policy and advocacy support. https://physicistscoalition.org

• 141.

  Nuclear Attack UK Live Broadcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exY6l4j12Ng

• 142.

  A project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is dedicated to digitizing films of Los Alamos and Livermore atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. In March 2017, the first of these declassified videos was released in an LLNL YouTube Playlist available at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvGO_dWo8VfcmG166wKRy5z-GlJ_OQND5.

• 143.

  “A” is for atom. This 1952 short cartoon (∼15 min) sponsored by General Electric charmingly explains about atoms, isotopes, nuclear power and explosions, and uses of isotopes in industry and medicine. Available at http://www.atomicheritage.org/tour-stop/atomic-science#.Wez2sUyZNwA

• 144.

  The Japan-US Radiation Effects Research Foundation was established to study radiation effects in the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the homepage of this organization can be found at http://www.rerf.jp/shared/ds02/index.html. In their 2022 Dosimetry System analysis, RERF researchers estimated the yields of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs at 16 kt and 21 kt, respectively; see https://www.rerf.or.jp/en/glossary/ds02-en/.

• 145.

  “ Hiroshima 1945—The British atomic attack.” There was no British atomic attack, but this speculative 15-minute video is worth watching; see also Ref. 146. This program describes how a squadron of British airmen trained with Lancaster bombers to deliver the products of the Manhattan Project as a backup in case American B-29 bombers proved unequal to the task. I am informed by a contact at Los Alamos that their records offer no support for the purported Lancaster training. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XX9ptCNpik.

• 146.

  “ Third Atomic Bomb Attack -1945.” This video is a companion production to that immediately above. In this 25-minute program, the complex nature of the Japanese surrender is explored, including the possibility of a military coup which would have resulted in the war being prolonged, and the possible use of a third nuclear weapon, which President Truman was reluctant to authorize. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I34pxr23Nhw.

• 147.

  Encyclopedia of Nuclear Energy. This extensive online encyclopedia published by Elsevier comprises dozens of sections written by experts on topics including radioactivity, nuclear weapons, reactor designs and safety, nuclear waste, medical isotopes, radiation protection, and radioisotope power for space applications. https://www.elsevier.com/books/encyclopedia-of-nuclear-energy/greenspan/978-0-12-819725-7.

• 148.

  The Soviet “Tsar Bomba” fusion-bomb explosion of October 30, 1961 was the most powerful nuclear device detonated, producing a yield of 50 megatons. In 2020, Russian authorities declassified a 40-minute documentary about the test. The voice-over is in Russian (complete with dramatic music), but English closed captions can be brought up by clicking on the CC tab of the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJhZ3i-HXS0

• 149.

  On August 8, 1945, between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Russia declared war on Japan. A brief YouTube video shows an image of a teletype printout reporting President Truman announcing the news. The printout was saved by a Brooklyn radio station owner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML5_VE5-1HQ

• 150.

  A BBC-produced seven-episode podcast on the development and use of the bomb focusing on Leo Szilard's role was broadcast during the Summer and Fall of 2020; available for download at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08llv8n/episodes/downloads.

• 151.

  In Our Time: The Manhattan Project. This 48-minute BBC4 radio program aired on October 7, 2021. In a round-table format with this author, Cynthia Kelly of the Atomic Heritage Foundation, and theoretical physicist Frank Close of Oxford University, interviewer Melvyn Bragg explored how the discovery of fission led to the fear of Germany acquiring atomic bombs and the consequent Allied program. Available at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00108h1.

• 152.

  Oppenheimer. This biographical movie directed by acclaimed filmmaker Christoper Nolan is scheduled for theatrical release in July 2023 in IMAX, 70 mm, and 35 mm formats. The film features a high-profile cast and is based on Bird and Sherwin's American Prometheus (MP-1, Ref. 64). A website can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppenheimer_(film).

The author would like thank John Altholz, Michael Attas, Jeremy Bernstein, David Cassidy, Mark Chadwick, John Coster-Mullen (deceased), Cassiano Endre de Oliveira, Miriam Focaccia, Dick Groves, Bob Hayward, Miriam Hiebert, Stan Norris, Patrick Park, Mike Pearson, Manfred Popp, Tom Semkow, Frank Settle, Ruth Sime, Roger Stuewer (deceased) Mark Walker, Alex Wellerstein, and Pete Zimmerman (deceased) for bringing various sources to my attention, providing me with copies of papers, and offering numerous suggestions and comments. The author also thanks three anonymous reviewers for suggestions and corrections which helped improve this paper.

The author has no conflicts to declare.