How to Build an Atomic Bomb - WW2 Documentary Special
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- čas přidán 25. 10. 2023
- Here near the end of 1944, we look at the development of the atomic bomb. What different methods of creating a nuclear reaction are being developed? How close are they to development? How does it work? Will they be able to make one in 1945? Will it go boom?
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Marek Kamiński
Community Management: Ian Sowden
Written by: James Newman
Research by: James Newman
Map animations by: Daniel Weiss
Map research by: Sietse Kenter
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Artwork and color grading by: Mikołaj Uchman
Sound design by: Marek Kamiński
Colorizations by:
Mikołaj Uchman
Daniel Weiss
Dememorabilia - / dememorabilia
Source literature list: bit.ly/WW2sources
Archive footage: Screenocean/Reuters - www.screenocean.com
Image sources:
Photographs courtesy of the National Security Research Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Implosion bomb from Wikimedia Commons
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
London - Howard Harper-Barnes
Melting Glass - Eden Avery
Le Chasseur et les Fugitifs - Ludvig Moulin
Progressive Progress - Howard Harper-Barnes
Infiltrator - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
Past Deeds - Dream Cave
On the Edge of Change - Brightarm Orchestra
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
Nuclear power has been both hailed and reviled since the atomic age began; hailed for the energy produced, and reviled for the damage it can and has both intentionally and accidentally unleashed upon the earth. This episode is about 1944, but what do you think the future holds for atomic energy here in 2023?
And the antinuclear movement was financed by the Soviet Union and then Russia as a means to impede the west. That’s why there was never an antinuclear movement in any of the communist countries.
Reading this, it just occurred to me to replace nuclear power with humanity:
Humanity has been both hailed and reviled since time began; hailed for the achievements produced, and reviled for the damage it can and has both intentionally and accidentally unleashed upon the earth
Nuclear energy is both the safest and cleanest form of energy for amount of energy produced. With weather dependent renewables the lack of efficient and scalable electricity or energy storage makes them unusable after some percentage of production. Best storage at the moment are dams, but building them is a major ecological catastrophe and most of damable places have already been dammed up so there just ain't solution there except in charlatans papers.
Given the polution/TWh and deaths/TWh ratios it's either nuclear energy or extinction for humanity. Especially when considering how unstable wind and solar is. For a simple example one can compare Co2 emissions per Wh in Germany and France.
I think you are spot on @@user-ju8jx4qk1r
As a Mechanical Engineer with a PhD in Applied Thermodynamics and additional studies in Energy Production methods, Nuclear Engineering and Modern Physics, I congratulate you on the detailed and highly accurate description of the subject.
Very good work.
Big brain approved!
Mate, you for sure spent a lot on university fees...How's them there student loan payments?
@@DonnyTrent5533 he may be graduated in a sane country where student's loans aren't a thing...
@@DonnyTrent5533he might be from... anywhere but America
All those degrees and I bet *even you* would struggle to answer one of those new "common core" math questions.
Supposedly, during that fateful run over Hiroshima, Col. Tibbits’ bombardier also maintained the _Enola Gay’s_ logbook. His comment upon release was to the effect of “It will be interesting to see the effect of this weapon upon the city.” His next entry, supposedly written immediately after the detonation, reads “My God, what have we done?”
That seems to sum up the opinions of most in the Manhatten and Silverplate projects.
The test nuclear 'device' was called "The Gadget". "Fat Man" (which may have been named after Sidney Greenstreet, in "The Maltese Falcon") was the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was called "Little Boy"
This ^^^^
Since England and the U.S. had a joint enterprise in the Manhattan project.
I was taught in school that fat man was code for Churchill and little boy was after FDR.
😂@@markmierzejewski9534
@@markmierzejewski9534 Well, both Churchill and Sydney Greenstreet [or Caspar Gutman, if you like] were British. But I am not sure about FDR as "Little Boy". Perhaps someone can ask Indy, next time he sits in his "Chair of Infinite Knowledge", where the names of the two bombs came from?
The device used for the Trinity test was the “Fat Man” plutonium design. Fat Man and Little Boy were the names of the design, not the specific individual bombs. It simply turned out only one of each was ever deployed, so history has attached the names to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons, but in fact multiple examples of both Fat Man and Little Boy bombs were actually built.
Neumann János (John von Neumann), Szilárd Leó and Teller Ede. 3 Hungarian physicists who helped in the development of the atomic bomb making it a true international effort.
"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!"
I couldn't help thinking of this with Indy's descriptions 😁
I Understood That Reference 😎
Los Alamos was able to come up with Fat Man and Little Boy.
Scientists are still trying to get the Illudium Q34 Explosive Space Modulator to work.
Well, back to the old drawing board.
Making a highly technical and complex topic digestible to the average viewer is an impressive achievement in itself.
OMG they used to show us "A is for Atom" in school. We were at the tail end of the "Duck and Cover" era, so we got "Fire Drills" in school rather than full on Nuc drills... but every week they would test the air raid siren on the top of city hall. That long, lonesome wail....
I have a PhD in Nuclear and subnuclear physics, but still the video was very informative and interesting for me. Very good job! (as always 🙂 )
Thanks for the lovely comment and thanks for watching!
now THAT is scary too
Great - doesn't the whole fission process happen in 1 microsecond - not 100 microseconds?
Greg's airplanes and automobiles does a fairly thorough debunking of the idea that the B-29 was chosen over the Lancaster solely because it was American.
Can you sum up what you mean?
@@pathutchison7688I've seen that same video and it's down to the bombbay design. The bombbays of American bombers were accessible to the crew in mid flight. Thus allowing an engineer to do the final arming of the bomb close to the target. You couldn't do that in a Lancaster.
On top of that the B-29 has, ofcourse, much better flight performance than the Lancaster.
@@martijn9568 thanks for the info. I appreciate it, though I’m not surprised you took the time to explain. This channel has one hell of a community. Thanks again.
I'm glad someone brought this up, thank you. I thought that was one of Greg's better vids; he's a better historian than some professional historians.
This video is proof that Indy can present on any topic, and make you believe he knows exactly what he is talking about✌. Unless you are a secret nuclear physicist and we just didn’t know it Indy? 😎
Who knows, maybe he is?
Thanks for watching!
that is scary
interesting factoid; the practice bombs, both conventional explosive and dummy, were orange and nicknamed "pumpkins". some of the conventional explosive variety were used on training missions over japan prior to the dropping of the atomic bombs.
Honestly, it's amazing to me that the design of a uranium bomb - the most primitive of nuclear bombs, yes, but still a nuclear bomb - is so simple that they didn't even bother to test it.
My understanding may be flawed and I'm happy to be corrected on this. I believe there were at least three problems that led to the one available Uranium bomb being used for real rather than tested. One was that the enrichment process to separate U235 from U238 was so slow that only one Uranium bomb was going to be available by the time the Soviet Union was committed to joining the war against Japan. Secondly, US intelligence had warned that using an atomic weapon would only have an effect on Japan surrendering if they thought there were more ready to use. They thought that it was necessary to have five available. Thirdly, the Plutonium bomb implosion method was insensitive to the exact composition of the fissile material and fast to produce but so complicated that it needed testing first. That implies that there may have been six A-bombs produced by August 1945 - one Uranium bomb used on Hiroshima and five Plutonium bombs, one tested in Nevada and one used on Nagasaki with three in the process of being shipped to Tinian.
@@scottbarrett4746 Yeah, refining Uranium down to weapons grade is definitely a slow process - that's why folks were so worried about Iran's centrifuges a while back - they were the type used for this enrichment process, and there were enough to make more than is reasonable for testing nuclear reactor design.
I recall watching a documentary on modern nuclear weapons security. Fundamentally, the thing that prevents anyone without nation-level resources from getting a plutonium bomb is technical complexity - and thermonuclear bombs are just that but more so. Plutonium can be made in any nuclear reactor in the world, including places like North Korea, so that's hardly secure, and hydrogen for thermonuclear bombs also pretty easy to find...but you're not making that implosion device unless you've got serious manufacturing and design talent on your side.
But for uranium bombs, the thing that prevents people from getting that is the fact that people who have weapons grade uranium are VERY careful about keeping it safe, because making a uranium bomb terrifyingly easy if you can get it.
It concluded that the biggest threat was from a dirty bomb - you just need *any* radioactive material to pull that off. The only real way to stop that happening is radiation detection in ports and border crossings and keeping radioactive material catalogued and locked up in country. Which we're...fairly good at, but not perfect at. There's enough holes in this layer of defense that honestly I suspect the big reason we've not had a dirty bomb go of with radiation is the idea that radiological weapons are a line nobody wants crossed. (And, uh, MAD just becomes "assured destruction" if you're a minor power or non-state entity. Not sure what every nuclear power's policy would be in terms of retaliating against a dirty bomb attack, but I'm quite sure there's a good chunk of people who might otherwise be interested in such an attack who don't really want to test their luck, just in case the response to someone dirty bombing the US is the US glassing the country they operate out of.)
They made small scale samples of the 'gun' bomb and tested them, so they new a full sized bomb would work.
i really feel that Oppenheimer missed a chance in sponsoring you guys to make a video like this back before it came out
It would have been much more coherent than the movie.
I think they should have just made Fermi, rather than Oppenheimer.
@@Jason-fm4my That movie seemed like nothing more than a vanity project. Someone, doubtless film critics, must have told him he was a genius and he has believed it ever since. Way, way too long and _boring!_
@@ToddSauve Did you watch it?
@@Jason-fm4my Unfortunately yes. It was so inconsistent in its story line and jumping back and forth, and then they made part of it black and white. You would have to be a complete expert in the _entire_ story to follow it half decently. I knew enough of it but nowhere near as much as the film assumes. It was a very big disappointment to me. Did you see it?
As a Mechatronics Engineer who saw Oppenheimer, I liked the video keep up the good work
Thank you very much and thanks for watching!
Man the timing of the movie tied it well for you guys
Maybe Nolan is a fan of the channel?
Thanks for watching.
You explain physics well! You're a talented teacher, sir.
A great episode from Indy and the World War Two team as always about the creation of the atomic bomb. Thank you.
Thank you for watching!
Indy, don't let anyone tell you that you don't know about fission. Your explanation was excellent. 👍🏻
Today I was at an Event with Kip Thorne who was mentored by Robert Oppenheimer and was an Advisor on the Movie.
He gave an interesting perspective on Oppenheimer importance in the Bomb Project.
Yes! The one time learning nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry in university finally pays off. It’s fascinating because a lot of the information presented is what I’ve learn, albeit more extensively, in university. Very interesting and informative indeed. Now with the Allies developing a new bomb, this will usher the world into a new age. An age of dominated by the fear of a nuclear war. The war may end soon, but when it does a new one shall begin from the ashes. This war wouldn’t be wage via large scale battles. But rather behind the scenes and with bluffs. But I am getting ahead of myself. All in all, fantastic video. Godspeed.
"...I need to explain a little more nuclear physics. Just what you were hoping for..."
Well, yes, Indy. Yes, that is exactly what I am here for.
Also speaking of 'fizzles' reminds me of the fantastic book The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy. Don't watch the movie, read the book...
The terrorists' s/h bomb did not have all the power that the nasties hoped for - it fizzled . . . Watch the movie - and - read the book . . .
@@EllieMaes-Grandad the bomb was still pretty bad, though. I would say; read the book; *and then* watch the movie. There is just so much more depth in the literary version that the cinema version cannot possibly afford
Yes, far more in the book, as usual with a Clancy book. @@DonnyTrent5533
Forget Clancy.
Love the updated 1944 map in the background, you guys really go all the way 👍🏻
New map in the studio? Awesome!
Glad you like the new map!
Great explanations - making complex subject is a rare talent! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Sir, one of the best presentations on the subject that I've seen. Well done.
At the very beginning, in 1939 there was a video about Einstein asking Roosevelt to make the bomb. Fast forward five years and here we are.
. . . . whilst in UK the project called "Tube Alloys" was under way and Germany was thinking about it atomic stuff . . .
Hi Indy
Wow truly great video with correct explanation.
Also poster behind your wall,which showcast current scenario of the war is great.
Thanks for another special.
Thanks. That added a lot more technical details & clarity about the design.
In the other films & video I've seen regarding this issue, so much is left out or simply not explained properly.
Happy to hear you enjoyed the technical details in the video, thanks for watching!
Very informative. I never knew the reason why the gun design was replaced by the implosion design before. Thanks for the information.
And thanks for watching!
One of Tom Clancy's novels, when Denver is nuked, he describes a Fizzle bomb.
Superb video, but one minor correction: the device hoisted to the top of the tower at the Trinity site was not "Fat Man" - it was called "the Gadget."
This is a fantastic overview, well done Indy and the Time Ghost Team! This is coming from someone who teaches chemistry at a university. I'm glad you mentioned that Little Boy was never tested. To me that's one of the most incredible parts of the whole story--that the scientists had THAT much confidence in the theory--but I don't think it's generally well known. Many history textbooks tell it as "there was a test in the New Mexico desert, then came the bombing of Hiroshima."
great, a crash course on nuclear physics and history! The Time Ghost team never fails to deliver. Though I hope the use of these bombs won't be necessary to end the war. Time will tell.
You know shit is getting real when we get the 1939 setup.
My Dad was an EE with GE on the project. Lots of electricity needed!
Excellent work Indy & team!
Of course Indy goes off on a baseball tangent
I have been eagerly awaiting your take on this.
A big fan and loyal viewer. Thanks
The best video yet on this topic! I do have a memory of thin man which is slightly different. It wasn't a gun design but a rocket (from a documentary). It fits with everything you have said but with a subtle difference. The rocket can hold the mass in place until it is ready to explode. There you go, Rocket or Gun ??
Gun. Basically a 5-inch naval gun with the barrel sawed off.
Great video Indy. Your narration is the best. 👌
Extremely well-done video! You have just simplified for the viewers a massively complicated process. Cheers!!
Thank you very much for the kind comment and thanks for watching!
Since England and the U.S. had a joint enterprise in the Manhattan project.
I was taught in school that fat man was code for Churchill and little boy was after FDR.
Minor comment - the tamper won't reflect any and all neutrons back, but a fraction of them. But it's still significantly helpful.
I am in the process of reading "blood, sweat and tears - the folly of WW2" and , unless I have missed it (or forgotten it) i have not seen a spies and ties on the b-deinst code breaking division of the German navy. The book suggests it was the most successful branch of the codebreakers in Germany
Great explanation!
Of all the books and videos I’ve read and watched on the subject, this is, by far, the absolute best short description of the A bomb. Congratulations! You’ve done an amazing job.
Impeccable research, outstanding presentation.
Thank you very much for the lovely comment and thanks for watching!
Really learned a lot on this one, thank you!
13:17 you won't fool us, this is Benedict Cumberbatch with a moustache !
Absolutely Brilliant Video!!!!
Truly fascinating subject matter on this one, bravo team!
Another excellent special
Thanks for watching!
George Kistiakowsky proved the general safety of his explosive by having it baked into cookies and eating the cookies in front of an investigative panel. On the way out of the room he realized that if someone gave him an electric shock he might explode.
This is the first exposure I've had to your channel. I already love it. This is a damn fine history video. I looked at your CZcams home page, but I have yet to find a follow up to this. The ending feels to me like there is supposed to be one. Is there one? I look forward to watching a lot more of this channel and you TimeGhost channel as well.
Well, the big ending comes in August, but this is part of the larger chronological overview of the war. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about the atomic bombs.
-TimeGhost Ambassador
I really like the map in the back evolving with the time. Helps keep it all in perspective and quite a nice set Easter egg.
Happy to hear you like the new map, thanks for watching.
I just love when a Special or new episode from Astrid or Sparty or a rare sighting of Anna is there on my screen! Thanks guys!
Great episode, very interesting and informative. Keep up the good work👍
Thank you very much for watching!
Impressive job of writing, Indy (imho).
☮
Appreciate you taking a preference for the metric system!
Brilliantly explained. Well done.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the clear description of the basic principles behind the firing mechanisms of the 2 types of bombs. Always wondered why they had both a uranium and plutonium bomb design.
Informative, as always. Thank you.
Thank you for watching.
Great job explaining the physics problem!
I learned a lot. Thx!
Superb, as usual. Thank you. TFS
Correction though: Fatman was the bomb dropped on Japan. The device tested in New Mexico was "the Gadget." It was the O.G. Original Gadget.
Great Video as always ❤
Thank you very much for watching 😀
I believe Enrico Fermi was also involved in the Manhattan Project
Well done 💯
Point of fact: Capt. William Sterling "Deak" Parsons was in charge of the Enola Gay mission, not Tibbetts. Tibbetts was a great pilot, but not an expert on ordnance. Deak was the expert and was placed in charge by Gen. Groves. He was the only Navy man on the plane, chosen for his involvement in building the bomb and his expertise on matters of ordnance.
Deak had previously advocated for the use of radar, which had been available for decades, to target ships and planes at night. He also was the key advocate for the use of proximity fuses for anti-aircraft fire, and after arranging a demo for brass, hundreds of thousands of fuses were ordered and used for the remainder of WWII.
Deak was one of the three "Joint Chiefs of Tinian." He designed the "gun" method of detonation of Little Boy. It was his idea to fuse the bomb once the Enola Gay was in the air as there had been multiple B-29 crashes in recent weeks at Tinian and he did not want to risk wiping Tinian off the map. Once the Enola Gay was safely away from Tinian, Deak crawled into the bomb bay and fused the bomb.
Approaching Japan, Deak chose the target (Hiroshima was one of three) and gave the OK to drop the bomb. Afterwards, he was awarded the Silver Star and promoted to Brig. Admiral, the first such admiral to never have had charge of a ship.
When informed that his friend Oppenheimer had his security clearance revoked, Deak had a massive heart attack and died at age 52. Deak was a cousin of my father, Lt. Commander John Lundy Parsons, who was at Pearl Harbor when Little Boy was dropped. He was called "Deak" because his colleagues at the naval academy thought he comported himself like a deacon.
its wild that different type of atoms actually matter , and HOW they want the bomb to explodes matters
Especially good video thank you Indy!
The test bomb detonated in Los Alamos was named "Trinity". "Fat Man" is specifically the name of the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.
Like your up-to-date map on the back wall.
Happy to hear you like it, thanks for the comment!
@@WorldWarTwo You did a great job explaining some difficult technical material. An excellent episode.
Another issue with the U-235 fueled weapon was the availability of U-235 to produce a test weapon if I am remembering the facts correctly
Thanks for answering my call for an easter egg from your previous channel 😂 That was quite the cross-over. I can't tell if it just was a coincidence, though.
Thanks!
Thanks TG. Good explanation.
Thanks for watching!
Loving the new Global Politik map.
3:30
Indy managed to sneak Baseball into WW2 once again.
Or did WWII sneak into baseball?
-TimeGhost Ambassador
Thank you.
Great episode. I live about 25 miles from Oak Ridge, TN and the nuclear facilities.
I live about 50 miles from the Hanford site. I think they still offer tours of the decommissioned reactor.
Read Prometheus, Oppies story and his battle with contemporary geopolitics of the early Cold War and Mccarthy.
As always this channel and its contents are amazing
Thank you for watching!
An explosive new episode!
Isn't it amazing that the nation who's torpedoes had crappy triggers until 1942 could, just three years later make this work?
I once mentioned to my father that I told my middle school students how to build an atom bomb. He was livid. Indy is far more detailed here. I finally got him to understand that aside from all the engineering getting a hold of the plutonium or uranium was the hard part most middle schoolers would have trouble finding. Then to keep him going I added they'd also have to learn how to weld. Suddenly that made the adolescent bomb feasible again. Middle schoolers are by nature a bit demented and easily bored. Give them something wild and maybe they'll learn the Periodic Table.
If I were to guess torpedoes are actually a more complicated weapon with a lot of moving parts and system, but that the A-bombs needed more science and technology before hand to design and create such a bomb.
Look at the amount of money that went into the Manhattan Project and the amount of money that went into the Mark 13, 14 and 15 torpedo, and the Mark 6 magnetic exploder and contact pistol. That'll give you your answer.
As a Briton, I find it sad that Tube Alloys gets almost no mention in the narrative around the Manhattan Project. The British worked out how to make a viable bomb but had insufficient resources to build one during WW2. Around half of the physicists and engineers in the project were from the UK. They were invited to leave after the War and the McMahon Act following a leak to Soviet spies and the UK set out alone to use the knowledge which came home from the Manhattan Project to restart Tube Alloys and build a British bomb, becoming the third country to detonate one in October 1952.
I Watched a miniseries called ‘Day One’, which is really good imo
A nuclear baseball, hmmm.
Perhaps in the future they will have a "Nuclear Football"? Great for many big booms 😊 Nah, nobody would be that MAD.
You missed a great chance to make the intro "boom" much louder than usual!
not a single radioactive suit in any of the clips. is this before they understood the affect of radiation?
No, I don't think so. Maybe it was underappreciated?
Hey guys, I'm a year into working at the same pizza place.
I'm now assistant manager. Hahahaha it's a trip how fast time flies and how quick you can really get your life flowing.
Congratulations on the promotion, thanks for watching!
It was informative and thrilled watching video about Fatman and little boy atomic bombs
"Do you remember when we talk about the chance of an uncontrolable chain reaction that could potentialy destroy the world"
"Yes, whot is it ?"
"I think we did it"
One addition to the discussion of nuclear fission and criticality.
- Supercritical covers any situation where energy is being added to the reaction system. Technically, this is what's happening in normal nuclear power plants too - they're generating excess energy, which is bled off by the thermal transfer system that runs the steam generator that makes the energy.
- Nuclear bombs, are, (mostly) uniquely in a state called prompt critical. This is in reference to prompt neutron absorption, which is happening at an extremely rapid pace and is deliberately prevented/minimized in sustainable reactors. After all, when you have a reaction doubling its energy output several times a second, you generally don't have much of a chance to do anything about it. Which, for a nuclear bomb, is kinda the point.
- For examples of prompt criticality that don't involve nuclear bombs, look up the "demon core" - an early plutonium core that went prompt critical momentarily twice in lab experiments that nobody who understood the full implications of radiation would do. But the scientists doing the research didn't know that at the time. A decidedly more gruesome example is the SL-1 accident, which, uh, maybe don't look up on a full stomach. The demon core didn't claim any lives, SL-1 very much did.
- Of the 3 big nuclear reactor incidents everyone knows (3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima), the only one that involved prompt criticality is Chernobyl (and that's not certain, because the *exact* sequence of the reaction is not fully known - we do know several things that went badly wrong that modern reactors avoid, though, it's just that the instrumentation that would give that level of detail got fried when the meltdown happened.)
The baseball reference is nice, that's where Indy first came into the limelight with (for me that is).
I’m not sure if it still does but the Hanford site offered guided tours at one point.
Edit: they do offer tours of the B reactor.
The physics was more detailed than Richard Rhodes has in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", I would have like a few sentences about the additional parts like the boron reinforced acrylic layer that encases (or possibly lines) the tamper.
Is it really a fact that the U238 tamper underwent fission? And what advantage was there to using a tamper of U238 over using a tamper of natural uranium which is mostly U238 anyways?