- Biographies of the preeminent scientists of the 20th century
- A history of late 19th and early 20th century physics and chemistry. Much more technical than many history books, which is a drawback for some audiences, but probably an attraction for a lot of people here.
- A history of World War I and World War II
- A history of the engineering and operation of the Manhattan Project
Highly, highly recommended for this audience.
One caveat: I tried the audiobook and couldn't stand the narrator. Your mileage may vary, but I recommend reading it.
I recommend Igniting the Light Elements for people who want a keystone piece about the early thermonuclear. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10596 - it's an extensive Thesis on the history of early thermonuclear period. Also one of the last comprehensive looks before classification fully obscures the plurality of the programs.
Nevertheless, I remember asking him what was it like to actually work on the project. He said that it was far less Hollywood-esque than many would imagine -- at least for him. He was just given math/engineering problems and was asked to solve them with no context. He never knew what he was truly working on, why he was working on these problems, etc.. The work was pretty isolating and contact was with others was pretty minimal. I do know that he met both Von Neumann and Oppenheimer on at least one occasion which is pretty awesome.
I wish I could find some records, but I do not even know where to look.
The National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas had a room full of file cabinets full of records you could look through the last time I was there, that might be a start.
Maybe one of the national labs that currently works on stuff has public records?
He had previously been working for a scientific supplies company in Chicago that was (unbeknownst to him) providing supplies to the Manhattan Project. Apparently his boss was aware of it, and when my grandfather's draft was called a letter from his boss convinced the draft board to assign him to Los Alamos instead. He was eventually able to get my grandmother, a secretary and typist, a job as a secretary in Los Alamos as well so that she could join him. She teased him the rest of their lives, because as the secretary to someone more important than a lowly technician, she had technically had a higher security clearance than he ever did!
The Atomic Heritage Foundation collects records about people who were affiliated with the Manhattan Project, as well as oral histories. Perhaps they have more information about your grandfather's work? See here: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/bios/
A wooden frame supported an elliptical-shaped structure, 20 feet high, 6 feet wide at the ends and 25 feet across the middle. It contained 6 short tons of uranium metal, 50 short tons of uranium oxide and 400 short tons of graphite, at an estimated cost of $2.7 million. According to Robert Crease, CP-1 and preceding piles were "the largest unbonded masonry structures since the pyramids.
On December 2, 1942, Fermi announced that the pile had gone critical at 15:25. Fermi switched the scale on the recorder to accommodate the rapidly increasing electric current from the boron trifluoride detector. He wanted to test the control circuits, but after 28 minutes, the alarm bells went off to notify everyone that the neutron flux had passed the preset safety level, and he ordered Zinn to release the zip. The reaction rapidly halted. The pile had run for about 4.5 minutes at about 0.5 watts. Wigner opened a bottle of Chianti, which they drank from paper cups.
spoiler:
probably the biggest engineering problem was the explosive lens
ambyra•2h ago