1 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:26,600 [Gottfried] Well, we're now going to have a discussion 2 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:32,000 of some of the points raised by Professor Bethe - 3 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,880 who I will from here on call Hans - 4 00:00:35,320 --> 00:00:39,979 of the points that he made in his lecture. 5 00:00:39,979 --> 00:00:42,980 We're joined, very fortunately, 6 00:00:42,980 --> 00:00:44,619 by Professor Robert Wilson, 7 00:00:44,619 --> 00:00:48,019 Bob Wilson, who is 8 00:00:48,019 --> 00:00:50,639 also exceptionally qualified to 9 00:00:50,639 --> 00:00:53,900 give us his insights on this topic. 10 00:00:53,900 --> 00:00:59,719 Bob Wilson was a student of Lawrence's at Berkeley, 11 00:00:59,719 --> 00:01:04,919 Having reached Berkeley after being a cowboy in Wyoming, 12 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:09,759 where he has many interesting exploits to report. 13 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:13,439 After obtaining his doctorate, 14 00:01:13,439 --> 00:01:17,000 went to Princeton as an instructor. 15 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:20,040 And was involved in 16 00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:23,659 the very beginnings of the atomic bomb project, 17 00:01:23,659 --> 00:01:25,500 both at Princeton and in 18 00:01:25,500 --> 00:01:29,320 close collaboration with Enrico Fermi at Columbia. 19 00:01:29,320 --> 00:01:34,619 He joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. 20 00:01:34,619 --> 00:01:38,079 Towards the end of the war, 21 00:01:38,079 --> 00:01:39,780 he had become the Director of 22 00:01:39,780 --> 00:01:43,000 the Nuclear Physics division at Los Alamos. 23 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:45,280 After a short stint at Harvard, 24 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:46,879 he came to Cornell, 25 00:01:46,879 --> 00:01:48,940 where he was the Director of 26 00:01:48,940 --> 00:01:52,600 the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies and in 27 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:53,940 charge of the building of 28 00:01:53,940 --> 00:01:59,364 a whole sequence of avant garde accelerators. 29 00:01:59,364 --> 00:02:03,189 He went from Cornell to Fermi Lab, 30 00:02:03,189 --> 00:02:04,650 he was the founding director of 31 00:02:04,650 --> 00:02:08,909 Fermi Lab near Chicago. 32 00:02:08,909 --> 00:02:11,009 Still, to this day, the nation's largest 33 00:02:11,009 --> 00:02:15,969 high energy physics laboratory. 34 00:02:15,969 --> 00:02:19,269 And he has retired here at Cornell. 35 00:02:19,269 --> 00:02:21,329 In addition to being 36 00:02:21,329 --> 00:02:23,790 an outstanding experimental physicist, 37 00:02:23,790 --> 00:02:28,169 Bob is also a sculptor and architect of note. 38 00:02:28,490 --> 00:02:35,010 Well, I think I'd like to begin our discussion by a point 39 00:02:35,010 --> 00:02:41,649 that is often raised in assessing 40 00:02:41,649 --> 00:02:46,210 the German war-, the German project. 41 00:02:46,210 --> 00:02:50,889 Many people seem to conclude that the Germans 42 00:02:50,889 --> 00:02:56,850 were astonishingly unimaginative and inept. 43 00:02:57,330 --> 00:03:01,010 They look, I believe, 44 00:03:01,010 --> 00:03:07,149 at the American performance as if it was an unblemished, 45 00:03:07,149 --> 00:03:10,089 simple route to success. 46 00:03:10,089 --> 00:03:13,390 It seems to me, in a certain sense, 47 00:03:13,390 --> 00:03:16,190 it illustrates what I believe 48 00:03:16,190 --> 00:03:20,070 was a statement once made by Kennedy, I think, 49 00:03:20,070 --> 00:03:21,730 after the Bay of Pigs, 50 00:03:21,730 --> 00:03:26,340 that a victory has 100 mothers, 51 00:03:26,340 --> 00:03:28,680 and defeat is an orphan. 52 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:33,420 Because it seems to me that, in fact, 53 00:03:33,420 --> 00:03:40,319 the American project had many start up problems. 54 00:03:40,319 --> 00:03:42,859 It was not strongly supported by the government 55 00:03:42,859 --> 00:03:49,120 in the beginning. Quite a few people 56 00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:52,960 had serious doubts as to whether it made sense. 57 00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:54,940 In fact, the British played 58 00:03:54,940 --> 00:03:56,919 an extremely important role in really 59 00:03:56,919 --> 00:03:59,340 getting it going. 60 00:03:59,340 --> 00:04:03,560 Bob, since you were involved at the earliest days before, 61 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:06,119 it was really a project, but it was almost, 62 00:04:06,119 --> 00:04:08,420 as I understand it, a freelance effort 63 00:04:08,420 --> 00:04:09,940 by the physics community, 64 00:04:09,940 --> 00:04:12,599 I wonder what your thoughts are on that. 65 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:16,260 [Wilson] Well, my thoughts at the time and my thoughts 66 00:04:16,260 --> 00:04:18,940 even now, is that in the beginning, 67 00:04:18,940 --> 00:04:21,560 one does not need a great deal of support. 68 00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:24,400 Does not need a great deal of money. 69 00:04:24,400 --> 00:04:32,605 Fermi had come over in 1939, to live 70 00:04:32,605 --> 00:04:35,250 in New York City and to be 71 00:04:35,250 --> 00:04:38,950 a professor at Columbia University. 72 00:04:38,950 --> 00:04:44,209 That was exactly the time that fission was discovered. 73 00:04:44,209 --> 00:04:47,649 And within two weeks of his coming here, 74 00:04:47,649 --> 00:04:49,489 he heard from Niels Bohr 75 00:04:49,489 --> 00:04:54,289 the news about what was happening. 76 00:04:54,289 --> 00:04:59,190 He immediately went to work to check 77 00:04:59,190 --> 00:05:05,590 Otto Frisch's measurements about 78 00:05:05,590 --> 00:05:11,650 fission itself and the phenomena, and got deeper into it. 79 00:05:11,650 --> 00:05:14,390 Another person at that same laboratory 80 00:05:14,390 --> 00:05:20,029 was Szilárd. Szilárd, of course, 81 00:05:20,029 --> 00:05:24,849 had invented this thing in 1934, I believe. 82 00:05:24,849 --> 00:05:27,369 And it was kind of a crazy idea. 83 00:05:27,369 --> 00:05:29,750 Nobody took him seriously, 84 00:05:29,750 --> 00:05:32,270 yet, he became a passion! 85 00:05:32,270 --> 00:05:36,130 So it was not surprising since he also was in 86 00:05:36,130 --> 00:05:38,089 New York City to see Szilárd 87 00:05:38,089 --> 00:05:40,769 working in that same laboratory, 88 00:05:40,769 --> 00:05:43,410 and again, with a great passion. 89 00:05:44,370 --> 00:05:47,649 The first things that had to be done 90 00:05:47,649 --> 00:05:52,310 were to make decisions whether to use carbon. 91 00:05:52,310 --> 00:05:54,669 One had to slow down 92 00:05:54,669 --> 00:06:00,390 the fission neutrons to 93 00:06:00,390 --> 00:06:02,430 thermal, and by means 94 00:06:02,430 --> 00:06:04,749 of what is called a moderator - a material - 95 00:06:04,749 --> 00:06:06,509 and that could have been carbon, 96 00:06:06,509 --> 00:06:08,329 or it could have been heavy water, 97 00:06:08,329 --> 00:06:09,730 it could have been beryllium, 98 00:06:09,730 --> 00:06:12,850 could have been any number of subjects. 99 00:06:14,850 --> 00:06:21,029 Both Szilárd and Fermi, working 100 00:06:21,029 --> 00:06:24,390 independently at first, came to the same conclusion: 101 00:06:24,390 --> 00:06:28,415 Carbon would be the right thing to use. 102 00:06:28,415 --> 00:06:32,439 I think that particularly Szilárd, who 103 00:06:32,439 --> 00:06:36,639 had a great facility for finding things, 104 00:06:36,639 --> 00:06:40,939 for buying things - if you needed something, 105 00:06:40,939 --> 00:06:44,060 nothing would stop Szilárd from getting it. 106 00:06:44,060 --> 00:06:45,480 So he would get radium, 107 00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:48,320 beryllium sources for the neutrons. 108 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:50,459 He would get the neutrons. 109 00:06:50,459 --> 00:06:51,980 And then he would find 110 00:06:51,980 --> 00:06:56,199 out by asking very penetrating questions, 111 00:06:56,199 --> 00:07:04,640 what were the possible kinds of impurities. 112 00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:07,980 And both of them 113 00:07:07,980 --> 00:07:12,660 decided that carbon looked good. 114 00:07:12,660 --> 00:07:14,400 It was made in an [arc?], 115 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,920 so they were talking about graphite. 116 00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:19,440 There were decisions that had to be made 117 00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:22,219 that took some time, some thought. 118 00:07:22,219 --> 00:07:28,640 And Fermi, because of his great background in 119 00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:33,440 neutron physics was 120 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:38,659 ideally situated for this; Szilárd with his passion, 121 00:07:38,659 --> 00:07:42,019 was another person who could push that project along. 122 00:07:42,019 --> 00:07:44,680 And both of them were doing exactly that. 123 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:48,180 And to my mind, very effectively and efficiently. 124 00:07:48,180 --> 00:07:50,859 [Bethe] May I come in more? [Gottfried] Of course! 125 00:07:51,740 --> 00:07:56,859 [Bethe] Szilárd, the graphite story 126 00:07:56,859 --> 00:08:01,740 was not as simple as that. Ferme did experiments 127 00:08:01,940 --> 00:08:05,520 and he had decided that graphite was 128 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:09,740 the right substance to slow down the neutrons, 129 00:08:09,740 --> 00:08:13,020 but the experiments indicated 130 00:08:13,020 --> 00:08:16,480 that graphite was not good enough. 131 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:18,640 That even if you 132 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:23,200 had an enormously large piece of graphite, 133 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:28,560 you still would not get a sustaining chain reaction. 134 00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:31,640 And there Szilárd came in and said, 135 00:08:31,640 --> 00:08:35,959 "Well, probably all graphite has some impurities." 136 00:08:35,959 --> 00:08:40,999 So he then went around, 137 00:08:40,999 --> 00:08:43,179 as you said, and 138 00:08:43,179 --> 00:08:47,119 investigated what impurity there could be. 139 00:08:47,119 --> 00:08:51,099 It turned out that in graphite 140 00:08:51,099 --> 00:08:57,440 there was at that time a certain impurity of boron. 141 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:02,919 Now one part of boron in 100,000 parts of 142 00:09:02,919 --> 00:09:09,880 graphite is enough to stop the chain reaction. 143 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:14,480 The Germans, under Bothe, who was Nobel Prize 144 00:09:14,480 --> 00:09:20,319 winning nuclear physicist, did not do that. 145 00:09:20,319 --> 00:09:23,960 They did also the graphite experiments. 146 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:26,020 And they also showed 147 00:09:26,020 --> 00:09:30,940 that even a large piece of graphite was not enough, 148 00:09:30,940 --> 00:09:34,000 but he did not think of impurities. 149 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:37,219 And that explained the failure of 150 00:09:37,219 --> 00:09:43,205 the Germans to reach a self- sustaining chain reaction. 151 00:09:43,205 --> 00:09:46,130 [Wilson] My view is a little different than yours, Hans, 152 00:09:46,130 --> 00:09:51,810 but my view, my memory, was that of doing many experiments. 153 00:09:51,810 --> 00:09:53,469 We did what we would call 154 00:09:53,469 --> 00:10:00,030 exponential pile experiments, or exponential experiments, 155 00:10:00,030 --> 00:10:03,690 and which was to make a small, one couldn't. 156 00:10:03,690 --> 00:10:05,129 The natural thing, of course, 157 00:10:05,129 --> 00:10:08,489 would be to make a tremendous pile of 158 00:10:08,489 --> 00:10:10,909 graphite and put in 159 00:10:10,909 --> 00:10:14,029 the uranium and then see whether it worked or not. 160 00:10:14,029 --> 00:10:15,770 Of course, that was out of the question. 161 00:10:15,770 --> 00:10:17,070 There wasn't enough money. 162 00:10:17,070 --> 00:10:18,589 There wasn't enough space. 163 00:10:18,589 --> 00:10:22,829 So instead, what Fermi would do, - he was very good 164 00:10:22,829 --> 00:10:24,989 as an experimentalist as well 165 00:10:24,989 --> 00:10:27,770 as being a theorist, - he would design 166 00:10:27,770 --> 00:10:30,890 an experiment with a piece of graphite, 167 00:10:30,890 --> 00:10:33,330 perhaps about that big, about this high. 168 00:10:33,330 --> 00:10:35,670 And depending on the experiment, 169 00:10:35,670 --> 00:10:37,449 and sometimes the experiments would 170 00:10:37,449 --> 00:10:40,010 be designed to see whether 171 00:10:40,010 --> 00:10:43,229 the graphite was pure enough or not, 172 00:10:43,229 --> 00:10:46,949 or whether the uranium was pure enough, or not. 173 00:10:46,949 --> 00:10:50,530 And those experiments would happen one after another. 174 00:10:50,530 --> 00:10:54,529 And it was those experiments one after 175 00:10:54,529 --> 00:10:56,289 another that gradually showed us 176 00:10:56,289 --> 00:10:58,809 the graphite getting better and better. 177 00:10:58,809 --> 00:11:02,310 And as we saw that the impurities that you 178 00:11:02,310 --> 00:11:06,909 talk about were coming out, 179 00:11:06,909 --> 00:11:11,569 that was a gradual thing as Szilárd would talk to 180 00:11:11,569 --> 00:11:16,029 the people making the graphite. 181 00:11:16,029 --> 00:11:18,629 It wasn't that they made one kind of graphite, 182 00:11:18,629 --> 00:11:22,390 it was a long, there 183 00:11:22,390 --> 00:11:25,369 was a long sequence of making graphites. 184 00:11:25,369 --> 00:11:28,010 Graphite constantly getting better. 185 00:11:28,010 --> 00:11:31,149 The number of neutron- we always would 186 00:11:31,149 --> 00:11:35,730 make-, a number would be the multiplication factor. 187 00:11:35,730 --> 00:11:38,750 And what we wanted to see 188 00:11:38,750 --> 00:11:41,810 was that multiplication factor go up to unity, 189 00:11:41,810 --> 00:11:44,829 at which time we would have a chain reactor. 190 00:11:44,829 --> 00:11:47,770 Well, it started off disappointingly small. 191 00:11:47,770 --> 00:11:51,380 It was less than 10% in the beginning. 192 00:11:51,380 --> 00:11:54,700 I'm not sure at Columbia that it ever got 193 00:11:54,700 --> 00:11:58,459 much more than about 4%, perhaps. 194 00:11:58,459 --> 00:12:04,279 It just was very small effects and having it interpreted 195 00:12:04,279 --> 00:12:08,860 by this intrepid interpreter Fermi, 196 00:12:08,860 --> 00:12:11,759 who would work out how the neutrons would, 197 00:12:11,759 --> 00:12:14,399 would travel, where they would be, 198 00:12:14,399 --> 00:12:17,519 and what you could expect, and how 199 00:12:17,519 --> 00:12:21,400 the small change meant 200 00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:24,680 that the project 201 00:12:24,680 --> 00:12:27,560 was getting better and that we were going up. 202 00:12:27,560 --> 00:12:30,090 [Gottfried] I just the other day 203 00:12:30,090 --> 00:12:32,510 I went back and looked at [Richard] Rhodes's book. 204 00:12:32,510 --> 00:12:33,209 [Wilson] Yes. 205 00:12:33,209 --> 00:12:34,790 [Gottfried] Which I think in general is quite accurate. 206 00:12:34,790 --> 00:12:36,429 [Wilson] Very good. Excellent. 207 00:12:36,429 --> 00:12:37,769 [Gottfried] And he said that at Columbia, 208 00:12:37,769 --> 00:12:41,049 87% was reached before the move to Chicago. 209 00:12:41,049 --> 00:12:42,000 [Wilson] 87! ? 210 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:44,669 [Gottfried] That's what he said. Right or wrong? I don't know. 211 00:12:44,669 --> 00:12:50,210 [Wilson] I don't believe it. [laughter] My memory could be bad- 212 00:12:50,210 --> 00:12:52,450 [Gottfried] But that was much later. 213 00:12:52,450 --> 00:12:54,450 That was just before the move to Chicago, 214 00:12:54,450 --> 00:12:55,870 that's two years later 215 00:12:55,870 --> 00:12:57,280 after what you're talking about. 216 00:12:57,280 --> 00:12:59,790 [Wilson] Again, in general though, 217 00:12:59,790 --> 00:13:02,669 we had very small pieces and there'd 218 00:13:02,669 --> 00:13:05,730 be lots of leakage out the side. 219 00:13:05,730 --> 00:13:07,929 We would have to calc-, 220 00:13:07,929 --> 00:13:09,410 Fermi would be able to calculate all 221 00:13:09,410 --> 00:13:11,069 of those different things and then 222 00:13:11,069 --> 00:13:14,610 finally come up with a number that was: were we ahead? 223 00:13:14,610 --> 00:13:17,550 Would it finally work, or would it finally not work? 224 00:13:17,550 --> 00:13:21,569 That had to be- that was a theoretical calculation. 225 00:13:21,569 --> 00:13:24,389 [Gottfried] Yeah. Well, I think that you mis-, 226 00:13:24,389 --> 00:13:26,169 I didn't quite - 227 00:13:26,169 --> 00:13:29,670 [Wilson] I thought that they got within 7%, 228 00:13:29,670 --> 00:13:33,080 at the very best, before doing the final experiment. 229 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:34,490 [Gottfried] Within 7? 230 00:13:34,490 --> 00:13:36,989 You mean at Chicago? [Wilson] That was back at Chicago. 231 00:13:36,989 --> 00:13:39,530 [Gottfried] I see. [Wilson] There were two phases, of course. 232 00:13:39,530 --> 00:13:42,889 There was the phase in New York 233 00:13:42,889 --> 00:13:44,690 and then there was the phase in Chicago. 234 00:13:44,690 --> 00:13:48,509 And there were, I think that there were some 30 experiments 235 00:13:48,509 --> 00:13:53,790 done after the experiment had been moved back to Chicago. 236 00:13:53,790 --> 00:13:56,529 There had been some 30 experiments moved, you know, 237 00:13:56,529 --> 00:13:58,909 testing, just as we had been, 238 00:13:58,909 --> 00:14:02,490 working up to - at very small values - 239 00:14:02,490 --> 00:14:05,689 getting up to, finally, what was a rather a large piece of,- 240 00:14:05,689 --> 00:14:07,750 oh, I think it was 12, 241 00:14:07,750 --> 00:14:11,590 maybe 12 feet high and 12 feet wide or 8 feet high, 242 00:14:11,590 --> 00:14:15,329 instead of the tiny blocks of graphite that we 243 00:14:15,329 --> 00:14:19,829 had back at Columbia. 244 00:14:19,829 --> 00:14:22,189 [Gottfried] Well, what I meant by the, 245 00:14:22,189 --> 00:14:25,270 I should perhaps expand on what I meant 246 00:14:25,270 --> 00:14:28,150 by the decision making. 247 00:14:28,150 --> 00:14:30,430 I think it's clear, 248 00:14:30,430 --> 00:14:34,349 and you've now stated that very eloquently and in detail, 249 00:14:34,349 --> 00:14:36,309 that there were a group of 250 00:14:36,309 --> 00:14:40,350 American, or foreign scientists in the United States, 251 00:14:40,350 --> 00:14:43,830 also Americans, led by Fermi and Szilárd, 252 00:14:43,830 --> 00:14:46,170 who were determined to build 253 00:14:46,170 --> 00:14:49,129 a reactor, and to find out whether one could do that. 254 00:14:49,129 --> 00:14:54,310 And that they poured all their enormous intellectual energy 255 00:14:54,310 --> 00:15:01,310 and their strength of personality into this effort. 256 00:15:01,310 --> 00:15:03,209 And that certainly, to me, 257 00:15:03,209 --> 00:15:05,510 has always been quite a contrast 258 00:15:05,510 --> 00:15:07,890 with Heisenberg and the Germans, 259 00:15:07,890 --> 00:15:10,110 but Heisenberg in particular, for example. 260 00:15:10,110 --> 00:15:11,609 Clearly a man of 261 00:15:11,609 --> 00:15:14,190 Heisenberg's caliber and achievement 262 00:15:14,190 --> 00:15:16,270 when he wants to do something, 263 00:15:16,270 --> 00:15:21,549 will also devote enormous energies to doing that. 264 00:15:21,549 --> 00:15:23,650 I mean, you don't do the sort of things that Heisenberg 265 00:15:23,650 --> 00:15:26,370 had done as a part time. 266 00:15:26,370 --> 00:15:29,070 And somehow one gets the feeling 267 00:15:29,070 --> 00:15:31,590 that with much of Heisenberg's effort, 268 00:15:31,590 --> 00:15:34,749 it was not a 100% or 269 00:15:34,749 --> 00:15:39,089 500% effort like it was in the United States. 270 00:15:39,089 --> 00:15:42,049 But I think what I meant more is 271 00:15:42,049 --> 00:15:46,609 that before long one did have to have 272 00:15:46,609 --> 00:15:48,949 government support, and one had to work in 273 00:15:48,949 --> 00:15:54,329 a government that was willing to not only support, 274 00:15:54,329 --> 00:15:57,469 but intelligently support the project. 275 00:15:57,469 --> 00:16:03,889 And allow this totally unprecedented effort 276 00:16:03,889 --> 00:16:05,969 to take its own form and not 277 00:16:05,969 --> 00:16:09,889 to be put into some pre-existing military 278 00:16:09,889 --> 00:16:15,510 or governmental straight jacket. 279 00:16:15,510 --> 00:16:18,690 And there, it seems to me, it was far 280 00:16:18,690 --> 00:16:21,730 from a foregone conclusion that this would happen. 281 00:16:21,730 --> 00:16:24,730 The first American effort 282 00:16:24,730 --> 00:16:29,009 under the Briggs committee was not very effective. 283 00:16:29,009 --> 00:16:32,790 It was not as effective as the British effort. 284 00:16:33,910 --> 00:16:36,430 What you're talking about, Bob 285 00:16:36,430 --> 00:16:37,850 and Hans now, has been 286 00:16:37,850 --> 00:16:40,109 mainly the question of building a reactor. 287 00:16:40,109 --> 00:16:43,570 It's still not the question of building a bomb. 288 00:16:43,570 --> 00:16:46,740 [Wilson] I think that was the key to it in both places. 289 00:16:46,740 --> 00:16:48,310 [Gottfried] It was! 290 00:16:48,310 --> 00:16:50,710 [Wilson] The reason that the project 291 00:16:50,710 --> 00:16:57,530 was not getting a great deal of support from Washington, 292 00:16:57,530 --> 00:17:00,380 either of care or money, 293 00:17:00,380 --> 00:17:02,330 was that we were building 294 00:17:02,330 --> 00:17:09,689 a reactor. I know when I started to do this, 295 00:17:09,689 --> 00:17:16,330 I felt that I was building, doing - I had a pacifist background - 296 00:17:16,330 --> 00:17:22,289 and between doing that and going to the radar laboratory, 297 00:17:22,289 --> 00:17:25,830 I chose this as the more peaceful thing to do because 298 00:17:25,830 --> 00:17:29,549 we were building a reactor. At the time, in this country then, 299 00:17:29,549 --> 00:17:37,629 I think that the canonical number used for a bomb, 300 00:17:37,629 --> 00:17:40,350 was something like 100 kilograms, 301 00:17:40,350 --> 00:17:45,530 it was- [Gottfried] -of uranium-230. 302 00:17:45,530 --> 00:17:48,170 [crosstalk] [Wilson] -and one did not talk about- [Gottfried]-of uranium-235. 303 00:17:48,170 --> 00:17:50,330 [Wilson] Uranium-235, yes. 304 00:17:50,330 --> 00:17:52,830 [Gottfried] So you were not aware, say, of the- [crosstalk] 305 00:17:52,830 --> 00:17:55,630 -Peierls-Frisch? [Wilson] We were reasonably relaxed. 306 00:17:55,630 --> 00:17:57,450 Fermi would go off skiing, 307 00:17:57,450 --> 00:17:59,929 he would go off to Michigan to 308 00:17:59,929 --> 00:18:07,270 the usual summer meetings that occurred there. 309 00:18:07,270 --> 00:18:10,830 He worked hard because he always worked hard. [laughter] 310 00:18:10,830 --> 00:18:14,690 But the idea was not that we were winning a war, 311 00:18:14,690 --> 00:18:17,929 the idea was that we were exploring something. 312 00:18:17,929 --> 00:18:22,309 Now that changed all at once, in the middle of, 313 00:18:22,309 --> 00:18:27,559 I think in the middle of 1942, perhaps. 314 00:18:27,559 --> 00:18:30,010 [Bethe, quietly offscreen] '41. 315 00:18:30,530 --> 00:18:33,729 Well, the thing that changed it. 316 00:18:33,729 --> 00:18:36,029 There were two things that changed it. 317 00:18:36,029 --> 00:18:39,169 One were the calculations that had 318 00:18:39,169 --> 00:18:42,189 been made by Frisch and Peierls. 319 00:18:42,189 --> 00:18:45,149 Which indicated- [Gottfried] That was '41. 320 00:18:45,149 --> 00:18:47,109 Well it became known over here in '41' 321 00:18:47,109 --> 00:18:50,290 [Wilson] You're right. It's, I'm sorry, middle of- [crosstalk, unintelligible] 322 00:18:50,290 --> 00:18:52,050 [Gottfried] -were earlier, but- yes. But they became known- 323 00:18:52,050 --> 00:18:53,889 [Wilson] I heard these 324 00:18:53,889 --> 00:18:56,110 personally from a man who came over, 325 00:18:56,110 --> 00:19:00,790 his name was Franz Simon, 326 00:19:00,790 --> 00:19:04,989 or Simons, who came from that same laboratory. 327 00:19:04,989 --> 00:19:06,409 He told me about all of 328 00:19:06,409 --> 00:19:08,749 those measurements that came to me, 329 00:19:08,749 --> 00:19:13,170 as, you know, something just changed everything. 330 00:19:13,170 --> 00:19:18,929 Bainbridge came over with numbers. 331 00:19:18,929 --> 00:19:22,190 Various Americans came over -[Gottfried] From England. 332 00:19:22,190 --> 00:19:25,710 [Wilson] - I think Oliphant came over with with numbers, 333 00:19:25,710 --> 00:19:28,610 trying to get us to take some action. 334 00:19:28,610 --> 00:19:32,049 But they had to convince us 335 00:19:32,049 --> 00:19:35,910 that the theory was some good. 336 00:19:35,910 --> 00:19:37,940 And when they had, 337 00:19:37,940 --> 00:19:40,190 when the British had 338 00:19:40,190 --> 00:19:47,150 taken the work of Peierls and Frisch seriously, 339 00:19:47,150 --> 00:19:50,349 and that took a big argument over there too. 340 00:19:50,349 --> 00:19:54,010 But once that had been taken seriously over there, 341 00:19:54,010 --> 00:19:56,770 then it was taken seriously over here. 342 00:19:56,770 --> 00:20:00,749 And at that point, there was another thing that was 343 00:20:00,749 --> 00:20:04,410 happening, that when they said, 344 00:20:04,410 --> 00:20:08,149 part of their theory was that a few pounds, 345 00:20:08,149 --> 00:20:12,409 -that was what they had underestimated it 346 00:20:12,409 --> 00:20:15,389 in their calculation- a few pounds would be enough. 347 00:20:15,389 --> 00:20:17,190 Then everybody began to think 348 00:20:17,190 --> 00:20:21,629 about a way of- [Gottfried] -making a few pounds. 349 00:20:21,629 --> 00:20:23,069 [laughter] [Wilson] -making a few pounds. 350 00:20:23,069 --> 00:20:25,369 That was quite possible to think about, 351 00:20:25,369 --> 00:20:28,070 to separate it, instead of having to think about 352 00:20:28,070 --> 00:20:31,650 practically tons of this material. 353 00:20:31,650 --> 00:20:34,150 So that changed everything. 354 00:20:34,150 --> 00:20:38,170 The project then, - a group of young people, 355 00:20:38,170 --> 00:20:40,110 there had been old fuddy-duddies, 356 00:20:40,110 --> 00:20:45,569 Mr. Briggs and the people in charge 357 00:20:45,569 --> 00:20:47,489 of it couldn't have 358 00:20:47,489 --> 00:20:51,330 been dragging their feet more than they had - 359 00:20:51,330 --> 00:20:54,110 but instead we had people like Compton, 360 00:20:54,110 --> 00:20:58,389 we had people like Ernest Lawrence, really challenging it, 361 00:20:58,389 --> 00:21:02,430 finally got the whole thing turned around. 362 00:21:02,430 --> 00:21:06,649 So that by the time a few days before Pearl Harbor, 363 00:21:06,649 --> 00:21:11,990 a decision was made to go all out, 364 00:21:11,990 --> 00:21:17,729 to separate the isotopes of uranium. 365 00:21:17,729 --> 00:21:19,930 And, at the same time, 366 00:21:19,930 --> 00:21:23,410 in parallel to make plutonium. 367 00:21:23,410 --> 00:21:27,069 That was taken and everything changed. 368 00:21:27,069 --> 00:21:29,150 The place of the project changed, 369 00:21:29,150 --> 00:21:33,030 the people changed, the support changed then. 370 00:21:33,030 --> 00:21:34,989 Everything was different than it 371 00:21:34,989 --> 00:21:37,730 had been before that date. 372 00:21:37,730 --> 00:21:44,299 And between the middle of '41 and of Pearl Harbor, 373 00:21:44,299 --> 00:21:45,620 which was in December, 374 00:21:45,620 --> 00:21:49,399 that was the time of a great- [Gottfried] Takeoff. 375 00:21:49,399 --> 00:21:51,139 [Wilson] Well, of a great argument. 376 00:21:51,139 --> 00:21:55,079 And it was a tremendous argument 377 00:21:55,079 --> 00:21:56,679 going on: What to believe, 378 00:21:56,679 --> 00:21:58,960 how to believe, what should be done. 379 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:03,500 And it was very dramatic at the time. 380 00:22:03,500 --> 00:22:08,539 And it changed though from being a peaceful project. 381 00:22:08,539 --> 00:22:11,039 I can remember that because 382 00:22:11,039 --> 00:22:13,520 I thought I was doing something peaceful. 383 00:22:13,520 --> 00:22:16,560 And I suddenly found out that I was doing 384 00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:22,019 the most warlike thing that it is possible to do. 385 00:22:22,290 --> 00:22:28,530 [Bethe] I should add that Roosevelt must be mentioned. 386 00:22:28,530 --> 00:22:34,429 Roosevelt made the decision to go all out to do it. 387 00:22:34,429 --> 00:22:35,790 He did not take 388 00:22:35,790 --> 00:22:39,730 that decision after the famous Einstein letter. 389 00:22:39,730 --> 00:22:43,630 [Wilson] Yes, that's correct. Einstein letter 390 00:22:43,630 --> 00:22:46,990 only resulted in the committee. [Bethe] Right. 391 00:22:46,990 --> 00:22:49,440 [Gottfried] The Briggs Committee. [Wilson] Uranium committee. 392 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:51,890 [Bethe] The committee was dragging its feet. 393 00:22:51,890 --> 00:22:55,009 [Wilson] I think that they eventually got around to 394 00:22:55,009 --> 00:22:59,249 giving $6,000 for the project. [Bethe] To Fermi, yes. 395 00:22:59,249 --> 00:23:04,909 [Wilson] To Fermi. [Bethe] Roosevelt 396 00:23:04,909 --> 00:23:08,490 made the decision and once that decision was made, 397 00:23:08,490 --> 00:23:12,010 it stood, and no matter what happens later 398 00:23:12,010 --> 00:23:14,830 would not change that decision. 399 00:23:14,830 --> 00:23:20,630 The other thing I want to mention is that Simon, 400 00:23:20,630 --> 00:23:24,370 whom you mentioned, at the same time 401 00:23:24,370 --> 00:23:27,250 had already thought very hard 402 00:23:27,250 --> 00:23:31,150 about separating uranium isotopes. 403 00:23:31,150 --> 00:23:36,809 [Wilson] That's right. [Bethe] And while there 404 00:23:36,809 --> 00:23:39,129 had been thoughts in this country, 405 00:23:39,129 --> 00:23:43,650 but nothing as practical as Simon. 406 00:23:43,650 --> 00:23:46,089 And Simon's method of 407 00:23:46,089 --> 00:23:51,890 separation by diffusion is the one that was used. 408 00:23:51,890 --> 00:23:55,009 [Wilson] As opposed to the Clusius Method, I think, which is- 409 00:23:56,009 --> 00:23:57,209 [Gottfried] Which method? 410 00:23:57,209 --> 00:23:58,670 [Wilson] There was a Clusius - 411 00:23:58,670 --> 00:23:59,690 [Bethe] Yes. 412 00:23:59,690 --> 00:24:02,769 [Wilson] -Method, which the Germans tried, 413 00:24:02,769 --> 00:24:04,910 I believe. [Bethe] And which didn't work. 414 00:24:04,910 --> 00:24:07,070 [Wilson] And which did not work for reasons that- 415 00:24:07,070 --> 00:24:11,770 it did not work on uranium 416 00:24:11,770 --> 00:24:14,410 because they called uranium soft, 417 00:24:14,410 --> 00:24:17,965 and this would not work on a soft mat- a heavy material. 418 00:24:17,965 --> 00:24:22,320 [Gottfried] But, Hans, it's my impression that when you first- 419 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,479 What was your first reaction to 420 00:24:25,479 --> 00:24:27,680 being asked to join 421 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,880 this project, or to hearing of the project? 422 00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:35,779 [Bethe] My first reaction, hearing of the project, was that this 423 00:24:35,779 --> 00:24:41,839 could never produce anything useful in the war, 424 00:24:41,839 --> 00:24:49,139 during the war. That it was a boondoggle giving rise to 425 00:24:49,139 --> 00:24:53,999 interesting experiments. And that if 426 00:24:53,999 --> 00:24:57,379 you wanted to participate in the war effort, 427 00:24:57,379 --> 00:25:01,919 you better went to MIT working on radar; 428 00:25:01,919 --> 00:25:06,759 just like Bob, but with the opposite side. 429 00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,999 But then in the-, 430 00:25:13,999 --> 00:25:18,339 in June of '42, 431 00:25:18,339 --> 00:25:20,859 I was asked to join the project. 432 00:25:20,859 --> 00:25:24,620 I was asked by Robert Oppenheimer 433 00:25:24,620 --> 00:25:31,939 and I was then told at Chicago what had happened. 434 00:25:31,939 --> 00:25:36,780 By that time Fermi's experiments 435 00:25:36,780 --> 00:25:40,559 had come to the point that he was sure 436 00:25:40,559 --> 00:25:43,400 that he could get a chain reaction. 437 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:50,719 This was early summer of '42, and in graphite, of course. 438 00:25:50,719 --> 00:25:57,739 Quite some time before, 439 00:25:57,739 --> 00:26:01,499 Lou Turner, in Princeton, 440 00:26:01,499 --> 00:26:08,379 had come to the conclusion that in such a pile, 441 00:26:08,379 --> 00:26:12,860 you would produce plutonium-239. 442 00:26:12,860 --> 00:26:17,960 And that plutonium-239 was just as good as 443 00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:24,479 uranium-235 in making a bomb. So when I joined the project 444 00:26:24,479 --> 00:26:28,279 it was clear that we were working for a bomb. 445 00:26:28,279 --> 00:26:31,339 [Wilson] Also, to put in something: that 446 00:26:31,339 --> 00:26:35,059 was one of the important things because 447 00:26:35,059 --> 00:26:40,279 Segrè and Seaborg at Berkeley had 448 00:26:40,279 --> 00:26:45,299 measured that plutonium 449 00:26:45,299 --> 00:26:48,559 would actually undergo fission, thermal fission. 450 00:26:48,559 --> 00:26:51,520 But it did, as the theory predicted, 451 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:57,260 it behaved exactly like uranium-235, except possibly better. 452 00:26:57,260 --> 00:27:00,880 So that was the other large thing 453 00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,920 that changed everybody's mind. 454 00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:04,960 That plutonium was real, 455 00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:12,410 not just some, something in Lou Turner's, in his mind, 456 00:27:12,410 --> 00:27:14,530 but it was something that was real 457 00:27:14,530 --> 00:27:17,450 and that one could make a bomb, could talk about a bomb. 458 00:27:17,450 --> 00:27:21,890 [Gottfried] And by that time you already knew of the Frisch-Peierls calculation also? 459 00:27:21,890 --> 00:27:24,170 [Bethe] I am not sure. 460 00:27:24,170 --> 00:27:25,659 If not by that time- 461 00:27:25,659 --> 00:27:28,749 [Gottfried] Shortly, and by the time you got to Berkeley, you heard about it. 462 00:27:28,749 --> 00:27:30,330 [Bethe] Yes, yes. [Wilson] I think those two things 463 00:27:30,330 --> 00:27:32,830 were happening almost simultaneously. 464 00:27:32,830 --> 00:27:35,270 What was unusual 465 00:27:35,270 --> 00:27:37,729 is that the theorists in this country, 466 00:27:37,729 --> 00:27:40,470 no one had made a good calculation 467 00:27:40,470 --> 00:27:43,949 about how much material would be required 468 00:27:43,949 --> 00:27:45,349 to make a bomb. 469 00:27:45,349 --> 00:27:47,850 [Gottfried] That's one of the points I thought is worth 470 00:27:47,850 --> 00:27:49,849 raising because we are 471 00:27:49,849 --> 00:27:52,289 sort of surprised that Heisenberg didn't do it, 472 00:27:52,289 --> 00:27:54,189 but it's also true that, that 473 00:27:54,189 --> 00:27:56,410 in fact, in this country nobody did it either 474 00:27:56,410 --> 00:27:58,929 for quite a while. It was really Frisch and Peierls who- 475 00:27:58,929 --> 00:28:01,489 [Wilson] It was Frisch and Peierls, who had nothing else to do. 476 00:28:01,489 --> 00:28:02,989 They were in Birmingham, 477 00:28:02,989 --> 00:28:04,410 they were enemy aliens. 478 00:28:04,410 --> 00:28:05,990 [laughter] They couldn't go out. 479 00:28:05,990 --> 00:28:08,909 So they sat and figured out how 480 00:28:08,909 --> 00:28:11,910 a pile, how a bomb would work. 481 00:28:11,910 --> 00:28:17,909 [Bethe] [unintelligible] [Gottfried] They got too optimistic - 482 00:28:17,909 --> 00:28:20,369 [Wilson] I think their method though was correct. [crosstalk] 483 00:28:20,369 --> 00:28:24,949 [Gottfried] They just didn't have the cross section. [Bethe] The method- 484 00:28:24,949 --> 00:28:29,370 [Wilson] They had to make assumptions about the probability 485 00:28:29,370 --> 00:28:31,689 of neutrons making fission. 486 00:28:31,689 --> 00:28:34,049 How many neutrons per fission. 487 00:28:34,049 --> 00:28:36,949 They had to make assumptions about those and they 488 00:28:36,949 --> 00:28:40,790 made the best possible. 489 00:28:40,790 --> 00:28:42,889 I mean, the most - [Gottfried] Overly optimistic. 490 00:28:42,889 --> 00:28:45,690 [Wilson] -overly optimistic ones. 491 00:28:45,690 --> 00:28:51,949 [Gottfried] But you know, considering this very point about the size of the bomb. 492 00:28:51,949 --> 00:28:54,529 And that Heisenberg, 493 00:28:54,529 --> 00:28:57,509 according to the Farm Hall tapes, 494 00:28:57,509 --> 00:29:00,510 had no idea of how big 495 00:29:02,550 --> 00:29:06,329 a quantity, of how much of uranium or plutonium would be needed, 496 00:29:06,329 --> 00:29:08,630 and that he didn't know how to do the calculation. 497 00:29:08,630 --> 00:29:14,790 I was struck in reading Rhodes again, just the other day, 498 00:29:14,970 --> 00:29:19,429 well, I think it was mentioned in your lecture actually, 499 00:29:19,429 --> 00:29:21,949 but there was a famous set of meetings 500 00:29:21,949 --> 00:29:25,210 between Heisenberg and the German generals, 501 00:29:25,210 --> 00:29:27,209 and Heisenberg and Speer. 502 00:29:27,209 --> 00:29:31,310 [Bethe] Yes. [Gottfried] And, according to Rhodes, 503 00:29:31,310 --> 00:29:34,290 I think in the meeting with the generals, he said 504 00:29:34,450 --> 00:29:37,849 when they asked him how big would this thing be, 505 00:29:37,849 --> 00:29:39,929 apparently- [Wilson] "As big as a pineapple." 506 00:29:39,929 --> 00:29:41,610 [Gottfried] -"as big as a pineapple!" [Bethe] Yes. 507 00:29:41,610 --> 00:29:43,589 [Gottfried] Now, if he said, "as big as a pineapple." 508 00:29:43,589 --> 00:29:47,349 was this purely a theatrical performance, 509 00:29:47,349 --> 00:29:50,429 or was it based on something? 510 00:29:50,429 --> 00:29:52,410 [Bethe] It must have been because 511 00:29:52,410 --> 00:29:56,290 then at Farm Hall, 512 00:29:56,460 --> 00:30:00,739 he made a totally wrong estimate 513 00:30:00,739 --> 00:30:07,480 as the first thing, and in the conversation with Hahn, 514 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,719 which I think I mentioned in a lecture, 515 00:30:10,719 --> 00:30:17,140 he said, "I have never tried to figure it out 516 00:30:17,140 --> 00:30:20,119 because I was convinced that we 517 00:30:20,119 --> 00:30:24,700 would never get pure uranium-235." 518 00:30:24,780 --> 00:30:28,279 [Wilson] Hans, of course, I think 519 00:30:28,279 --> 00:30:31,820 I disagree with you about Farm Hall because I don't 520 00:30:31,820 --> 00:30:38,020 believe what they said at Farm Hall, and, uh. 521 00:30:38,420 --> 00:30:40,280 [Gottfried] Well, let's discuss that! [laughter] 522 00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,139 [Bethe] That's your privilege. 523 00:30:42,139 --> 00:30:50,599 But he said that in a private conversation with 524 00:30:50,599 --> 00:30:54,140 Hahn, whom he trusted very 525 00:30:54,140 --> 00:31:01,340 completely, and he had no reason to say something wrong. 526 00:31:01,340 --> 00:31:06,380 And then afterwards he made this crazy calculation. 527 00:31:06,380 --> 00:31:09,200 [Wilson] What do you mean he had no reason to say something wrong? 528 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,059 I would dispute that. 529 00:31:11,059 --> 00:31:14,020 He had every reason to say something wrong. 530 00:31:14,020 --> 00:31:16,080 He's talking to history. 531 00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:21,600 He's talking in a way that 532 00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:25,739 he has that opportunity of saying what he wants to to history. 533 00:31:25,739 --> 00:31:27,099 [Gottfried] Because you believe that 534 00:31:27,099 --> 00:31:29,959 he thought, he realized, that he was 535 00:31:29,959 --> 00:31:31,600 being overheard? 536 00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:33,959 [Wilson] He might have. I think- [Gottfried] This is a conjecture! 537 00:31:33,959 --> 00:31:35,520 [crosstalk, unintelligible] 538 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,319 [Wilson] I believe Hans' analysis 539 00:31:38,319 --> 00:31:44,099 because I've learned to believe Hans' analyses in the past. [laughter] 540 00:31:46,180 --> 00:31:52,480 But the other thing is that I would put in a probability, 541 00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,030 and I suppose- 542 00:31:54,030 --> 00:31:56,580 [Gottfried] You mean a probability that Hans was wrong, and that- 543 00:31:56,580 --> 00:32:00,720 [Wilson] Let me say a reason why I perhaps come out the way. 544 00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:09,250 It's, it's the whole project went along this way. 545 00:32:09,250 --> 00:32:12,029 Those people who would look at 546 00:32:12,029 --> 00:32:15,510 the numbers and say the glass is half- 547 00:32:15,510 --> 00:32:18,069 [Gottfried] You mean the whole German project? [Wilson] In this country. 548 00:32:18,069 --> 00:32:21,470 We'd look at the numbers. We can, they would say, 549 00:32:21,470 --> 00:32:25,209 look at the numbers and say we can make a-, I mean, Szilard 550 00:32:25,209 --> 00:32:27,169 would look at any numbers and say: we can 551 00:32:27,169 --> 00:32:29,469 make bombs! And we can, 552 00:32:29,469 --> 00:32:33,789 we can make reactors. Fermi was always very 553 00:32:33,789 --> 00:32:35,530 realistic and would not say 554 00:32:35,530 --> 00:32:38,569 anything more than he felt he really could do. 555 00:32:38,569 --> 00:32:40,369 Same numbers that they had. 556 00:32:40,369 --> 00:32:43,169 It was a case of Fermi going to the Navy one time 557 00:32:43,169 --> 00:32:46,070 and asking for money. 558 00:32:46,070 --> 00:32:48,629 Szilard going to Einstein. 559 00:32:48,629 --> 00:32:50,429 Completely different stories. 560 00:32:50,429 --> 00:32:53,909 It has to do with a glass being half full or half empty. 561 00:32:53,909 --> 00:32:57,469 Whether you're a great optimist or not. 562 00:32:57,469 --> 00:33:02,050 Ernest Lawrence constantly made 563 00:33:02,050 --> 00:33:03,730 the assumptions that we must 564 00:33:03,730 --> 00:33:06,069 take the most optimistic numbers 565 00:33:06,069 --> 00:33:10,009 and proceed on the basis of those optimistic numbers. 566 00:33:10,009 --> 00:33:12,450 Because if we're wrong, 567 00:33:12,450 --> 00:33:16,490 all that the physicist could be is wrong, 568 00:33:16,490 --> 00:33:18,229 and that didn't matter. What he said 569 00:33:18,229 --> 00:33:20,949 was supposing that that's right, 570 00:33:20,949 --> 00:33:22,689 then we must proceed and 571 00:33:22,689 --> 00:33:25,189 act as though those things were right. 572 00:33:25,189 --> 00:33:28,569 Because if we're making a mistake and the Germans aren't, 573 00:33:28,569 --> 00:33:30,549 that's going to be a fatal mistake. 574 00:33:30,549 --> 00:33:35,569 And he was probably the most, Ernest Lawrence, 575 00:33:35,569 --> 00:33:39,470 the most eloquent person to get everything changed here, 576 00:33:39,470 --> 00:33:41,990 to taking that project seriously, 577 00:33:41,990 --> 00:33:44,169 by that argument that we 578 00:33:44,169 --> 00:33:47,189 cannot afford to be wrong! 579 00:33:47,189 --> 00:33:49,209 And I believe that that was the argument that 580 00:33:49,209 --> 00:33:51,970 won over Roosevelt too. 581 00:33:51,970 --> 00:33:54,069 [Gottfried] Right. And incidentally, I was 582 00:33:54,069 --> 00:33:56,409 interested also, rereading Rhodes, 583 00:33:56,409 --> 00:33:57,810 which I've read a number of times, 584 00:33:57,810 --> 00:34:00,470 that when Groves, Leslie Groves, 585 00:34:00,470 --> 00:34:03,629 the newly appointed director of the Manhattan Project, 586 00:34:03,629 --> 00:34:05,910 arrived in Chicago for the first time, 587 00:34:05,910 --> 00:34:08,909 he said, "there is 588 00:34:08,909 --> 00:34:12,609 nothing wrong with doing something that doesn't work out. 589 00:34:12,609 --> 00:34:15,110 You should push everything. 590 00:34:15,110 --> 00:34:17,149 The important thing is that you should find 591 00:34:17,149 --> 00:34:19,929 out quickly whether it's right or wrong." [laughter] 592 00:34:20,730 --> 00:34:23,589 But anyway, coming back to 593 00:34:23,589 --> 00:34:25,769 your different reading of 594 00:34:25,769 --> 00:34:28,269 Heisenberg's, of the Farm Hall tape, 595 00:34:28,269 --> 00:34:29,689 would you please elaborate a little? 596 00:34:29,689 --> 00:34:33,150 [Wilson] Well, the first I knew of the argument, 597 00:34:33,150 --> 00:34:36,670 and let me make it as dramatic as possible. 598 00:34:36,670 --> 00:34:40,139 And that is 599 00:34:40,140 --> 00:34:43,580 the book 'Brighter Than a Thousand Suns' 600 00:34:43,580 --> 00:34:47,459 by Mr. Jungk. When that came out, 601 00:34:47,459 --> 00:34:49,840 I reviewed the book- [Gottfried] For the listeners 602 00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:51,999 I should say that that was a German book, 603 00:34:51,999 --> 00:34:54,680 published first, [Wilson: Swiss, maybe] Swiss, but anyway 604 00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,840 published in Europe, but in the '50s- 605 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:00,219 [Bethe] Well Jungk was a German. [Wilson] Was he a German, I thought-? Okay. 606 00:35:00,219 --> 00:35:04,019 [Gottfried] -and published in the '50s I believe, right? 607 00:35:04,019 --> 00:35:05,149 [Wilson] Yes. 608 00:35:05,149 --> 00:35:08,280 [Bethe] If so, then it must have been very early '50s. 609 00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,919 [Gottfried] Okay. So, in other words, the first- [Wilson] Quite early. 610 00:35:10,919 --> 00:35:13,480 [Gottfried] Quite early. And which discussed 611 00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,099 the German situation at some length, right? 612 00:35:17,099 --> 00:35:20,979 [Wilson] In any case, you could you could say that 613 00:35:20,979 --> 00:35:23,799 the Germans were successful 614 00:35:23,799 --> 00:35:26,119 because they did not build a bomb. 615 00:35:26,119 --> 00:35:27,979 We, on the other hand, 616 00:35:27,979 --> 00:35:30,400 failed because - we American 617 00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:34,179 physicists - because we did build a bomb. 618 00:35:34,380 --> 00:35:40,520 And I felt that, I felt that very strongly. 619 00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:45,759 I thought that that was a terrible thing to 620 00:35:45,759 --> 00:35:49,639 say and whenever I saw 621 00:35:49,639 --> 00:35:52,134 any kind of arguments getting close to that. 622 00:35:52,134 --> 00:35:55,670 Well, I felt that if I had failed 623 00:35:55,670 --> 00:35:59,370 by building a bomb in this country, 624 00:35:59,370 --> 00:36:02,090 and the Germans 625 00:36:02,090 --> 00:36:05,069 had succeeded by not building a bomb, 626 00:36:05,069 --> 00:36:08,629 that something was wrong. 627 00:36:08,629 --> 00:36:10,489 Here were people who were, 628 00:36:10,489 --> 00:36:12,729 as far as I could see, 629 00:36:12,729 --> 00:36:17,169 Heisenberg was a man who went right through the war, 630 00:36:17,169 --> 00:36:21,330 I mean, watching his colleagues 631 00:36:21,330 --> 00:36:23,789 either be killed or 632 00:36:23,789 --> 00:36:27,429 thrown out of their country, lose their positions, 633 00:36:27,429 --> 00:36:29,469 to me, he was a villain of 634 00:36:29,469 --> 00:36:31,529 the worst kind. Not the worst kind, 635 00:36:31,529 --> 00:36:34,089 he was a villain of the best kind! [laughter] 636 00:36:36,370 --> 00:36:39,190 But he was the person who stayed. 637 00:36:39,190 --> 00:36:42,630 And all of the other Germans working on that project, 638 00:36:42,630 --> 00:36:45,849 I did not believe that they were not working to 639 00:36:45,849 --> 00:36:50,329 build a reactor and to build a bomb as we were. 640 00:36:50,329 --> 00:36:52,109 And so I kept 641 00:36:52,109 --> 00:36:56,010 watching that happened, what they were saying. 642 00:36:56,010 --> 00:37:04,949 And now, so I keep my half full glass to interpret 643 00:37:04,949 --> 00:37:08,909 almost everything in a manner such that- 644 00:37:08,909 --> 00:37:15,769 [Gottfried] To support your preconception. [Wilson] -I can justify that what we did 645 00:37:15,769 --> 00:37:21,789 was a proper thing to do, and a just thing to do, 646 00:37:21,789 --> 00:37:24,589 and that the German physicists 647 00:37:24,589 --> 00:37:28,649 were not the saints of this. 648 00:37:28,649 --> 00:37:31,910 So I constantly look at it the other way around. 649 00:37:31,910 --> 00:37:36,570 Therefore, I assume that when they asked, 650 00:37:36,570 --> 00:37:41,889 when they asked one another, 651 00:37:41,889 --> 00:37:44,189 were they 652 00:37:44,189 --> 00:37:53,890 being taped or - there's a word - bugged, 653 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,319 I thought of course they knew 654 00:37:56,319 --> 00:37:57,540 that they were being bugged. 655 00:37:57,540 --> 00:38:00,999 And that here are 656 00:38:00,999 --> 00:38:04,759 ten people, varying in their backgrounds 657 00:38:04,759 --> 00:38:06,439 from a couple I think were 658 00:38:06,439 --> 00:38:10,860 Nazis to people who were almost saints. 659 00:38:10,860 --> 00:38:14,979 Von Laue - [Bethe?] Was a saint. [laughter] 660 00:38:14,979 --> 00:38:17,099 [Wilson] -yeah, was a saint, in fact! 661 00:38:17,099 --> 00:38:20,299 But it seems to me it would be impossible for 662 00:38:20,299 --> 00:38:23,460 that group of people to suppose 663 00:38:23,460 --> 00:38:26,259 that this elegant country house 664 00:38:26,259 --> 00:38:29,640 was put at their disposal for their comfort. 665 00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,739 That seemed to me the only thing that they could 666 00:38:32,739 --> 00:38:36,780 conclude was that they were being bugged. 667 00:38:36,780 --> 00:38:40,599 [Gottfried] But is it not true that when- [Bethe] You have left out one thing. 668 00:38:40,599 --> 00:38:45,479 Namely that all these people, and Heisenberg in 669 00:38:45,479 --> 00:38:47,619 particular, were really quite 670 00:38:47,619 --> 00:38:52,900 naive, in matters of the world. 671 00:38:52,900 --> 00:38:55,359 [Wilson] Do uou mean like there's this man, 672 00:38:55,359 --> 00:38:58,219 Harteck and Diebner 673 00:38:58,219 --> 00:39:00,639 and there were six of 674 00:39:00,639 --> 00:39:04,240 those guys that struck me as pretty tough customers. 675 00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:06,039 [Bethe] I agree with that. 676 00:39:06,039 --> 00:39:09,079 [Wilson] I mean, I quite agree that Heisenberg 677 00:39:09,079 --> 00:39:12,519 did strike me as a rather naive person. 678 00:39:12,519 --> 00:39:14,739 [Bethe] Right. [Wilson] On the other hand, 679 00:39:14,739 --> 00:39:16,859 not so naive that he - 680 00:39:16,859 --> 00:39:19,399 I also, [think he's] one of the most intelligent brightest 681 00:39:19,399 --> 00:39:23,580 people that we know. And that if he were speaking 682 00:39:23,580 --> 00:39:31,380 about how he was going to go down in history, 683 00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:34,660 he might say something somewhat differently 684 00:39:34,660 --> 00:39:38,539 than he would have said,- [Gottfried] but is it not true that if you look at 685 00:39:38,539 --> 00:39:41,569 not any particular piece, but the whole thing, 686 00:39:45,569 --> 00:39:48,599 then it doesn't really 687 00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,899 nothing lends itself to any single interpretation, of course, 688 00:39:54,899 --> 00:39:56,539 but it does not lend itself very well 689 00:39:56,539 --> 00:39:58,619 to the interpretation either 690 00:39:58,619 --> 00:40:05,220 that Heisenberg was using this whole bugging opportunities, 691 00:40:05,220 --> 00:40:07,059 - which is the way you almost put it - 692 00:40:07,059 --> 00:40:09,759 put himself in the best light. 693 00:40:09,759 --> 00:40:11,899 I mean, because there are lots of things 694 00:40:11,899 --> 00:40:14,399 that are inconsistent with that theory. [crosstalk] 695 00:40:14,399 --> 00:40:18,759 [Wilson] -to just, to have honest conversations constantly. 696 00:40:18,759 --> 00:40:22,619 I understand that, just because you would get out of 697 00:40:22,619 --> 00:40:27,860 the habit of having to remember that you were being bugged. 698 00:40:27,860 --> 00:40:30,319 [Gottfried] Well actually, you know, since 699 00:40:30,319 --> 00:40:32,400 you couldn't come to the lecture, 700 00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,559 Tom Powers mentioned that 701 00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:38,199 some German generals had been put 702 00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:39,439 into a place where they were 703 00:40:39,439 --> 00:40:41,360 told that they were being bugged. 704 00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:43,320 And after a few days, 705 00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:44,939 they seemed to behave as if 706 00:40:44,939 --> 00:40:46,959 they had just forgotten about it. 707 00:40:46,959 --> 00:40:49,819 [Wilson] But I think it comes down to this though: 708 00:40:49,819 --> 00:40:54,239 were the Germans just making a reactor, 709 00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,960 felt that that's all they were doing, throughout, 710 00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,519 or did they understand that they could make a bomb? 711 00:41:02,519 --> 00:41:05,419 I feel they understood they could make a bomb, 712 00:41:05,419 --> 00:41:07,459 and one can make a case for that. 713 00:41:07,459 --> 00:41:10,979 One of the arguments was the pineapple, 714 00:41:10,979 --> 00:41:13,220 let's say the pineapple argument. 715 00:41:13,220 --> 00:41:17,219 If Heisenberg were not lying, 716 00:41:17,219 --> 00:41:19,960 I suspect he wasn't a liar. 717 00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:21,799 [Gottfried] You mean to the German generals? [Wilson] To the Germans. 718 00:41:21,799 --> 00:41:24,839 He then probably felt you could make 719 00:41:24,839 --> 00:41:29,019 one the size of a pineapple. 720 00:41:29,019 --> 00:41:30,919 Just taking his word. 721 00:41:30,919 --> 00:41:37,840 The second thing about that is in going through the book, 722 00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:43,020 it seemed to me that constantly the workers, 723 00:41:43,020 --> 00:41:44,839 people like Harteck, and I don't 724 00:41:44,839 --> 00:41:47,159 know the names of the other people, 725 00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:59,200 were constantly trying to make isotopes. [stammering] 726 00:41:59,459 --> 00:42:01,239 I mean to separate isotopes. 727 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:03,439 That was the thing they were trying to do. 728 00:42:03,439 --> 00:42:06,290 Half of their work was to separate 729 00:42:06,290 --> 00:42:08,899 heavy water, that was so that they would have enough work. 730 00:42:08,899 --> 00:42:11,859 But the other half of their work, 731 00:42:11,859 --> 00:42:14,599 -and they constantly are doing this, constantly going, - 732 00:42:14,599 --> 00:42:20,819 and the discussions are constantly about their abilities. 733 00:42:20,819 --> 00:42:24,660 And you can see that they're all trying to get jobs. 734 00:42:24,660 --> 00:42:27,179 As you read, they 735 00:42:27,179 --> 00:42:29,320 expect to get jobs over in this country, 736 00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:33,519 they did get jobs, and that they are sort of 737 00:42:33,519 --> 00:42:38,399 boasting about how good they are at separating isotopes. 738 00:42:38,399 --> 00:42:41,539 And that they were constantly doing that, 739 00:42:41,539 --> 00:42:44,520 and they were using different- [Gottfried] During the conversations. 740 00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,379 [Wilson] Yeah, those conversations, 741 00:42:47,379 --> 00:42:54,020 but other- And when you read- [Gottfried] Goudsmit's book? 742 00:42:54,020 --> 00:42:56,880 [Wilson] No, not Goudsmit's, 743 00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,079 the 'Making the Atomic Bomb' by- [Gottfried] Oh, Rhodes. 744 00:43:00,079 --> 00:43:02,059 [Wilson] Rhodes' book. Constantly it comes into that, 745 00:43:02,059 --> 00:43:05,479 that they're trying to 746 00:43:05,479 --> 00:43:10,180 learn how to make separations and they're trying to separate uranium. 747 00:43:10,180 --> 00:43:12,500 These did not strike 748 00:43:12,500 --> 00:43:15,939 me as people who had given up that separation at all. 749 00:43:15,939 --> 00:43:18,619 Especially when they knew that if they could 750 00:43:18,619 --> 00:43:22,099 make plutonium that that would, 751 00:43:22,099 --> 00:43:24,599 you know, that you could make bombs that way too. 752 00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:26,359 That these were people who 753 00:43:26,359 --> 00:43:32,740 were trying to make a bomb. They were failing. 754 00:43:32,740 --> 00:43:35,519 [Gottfried] Of course, it's possible, and this is mentioned by Rhodes, 755 00:43:35,519 --> 00:43:39,099 that Heisenberg was 756 00:43:39,099 --> 00:43:42,579 making the pineapple thing 757 00:43:42,579 --> 00:43:46,859 was based on a quite different consideration. 758 00:43:47,060 --> 00:43:49,499 He doesn't elaborate on it, 759 00:43:49,499 --> 00:43:51,119 but he does point out that 760 00:43:51,119 --> 00:43:54,000 Fermi apparently, very early, 761 00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,859 - like in 1940, still at Columbia, - 762 00:43:58,859 --> 00:44:01,439 I don't remember to whom he said this, 763 00:44:01,439 --> 00:44:04,420 it may have been Teller or Wigner, or Szilárd, 764 00:44:04,420 --> 00:44:07,600 one of the Hungarians, that looking 765 00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:11,059 out of the window of the lab said, 766 00:44:11,059 --> 00:44:14,080 'you know, this Manhattan, 767 00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,699 this whole scene, could be 768 00:44:16,699 --> 00:44:18,199 destroyed by something the size 769 00:44:18,199 --> 00:44:19,579 of a grapefruit or something.' 770 00:44:19,579 --> 00:44:21,359 And it may be that they 771 00:44:21,359 --> 00:44:24,400 were both just thinking simply,- 772 00:44:24,400 --> 00:44:27,039 [Wilson] Maybe it was rhetorical. [Gottfried] No, it was not- 773 00:44:27,039 --> 00:44:30,280 [Wilson] I mean that was if you had 235, 774 00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,359 then you could- [Gottfried] Yeah, that may have 775 00:44:32,359 --> 00:44:35,019 been either rhetorical or based on 776 00:44:35,019 --> 00:44:37,540 sort of not a question 777 00:44:37,540 --> 00:44:41,740 of how much space you needed to produce a chain reaction. 778 00:44:41,740 --> 00:44:43,819 But perhaps on, you know, 779 00:44:43,819 --> 00:44:45,839 just what's the energy available if you could 780 00:44:45,839 --> 00:44:48,629 get most of it to undergo fission without, 781 00:44:48,629 --> 00:44:50,579 you know, without figuring out how could 782 00:44:50,579 --> 00:44:52,340 you actually cause the fission, 783 00:44:52,340 --> 00:44:54,200 but just saying if I have this much uranium 784 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:55,800 and it all undergoes fission, 785 00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:57,220 I will, you know, that'll 786 00:44:57,220 --> 00:44:59,279 destroy everything we're looking at. 787 00:44:59,279 --> 00:45:01,239 It could be based on some, 788 00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:02,839 you know, extremely, I mean, 789 00:45:02,839 --> 00:45:04,259 not the back of an envelope but 790 00:45:04,259 --> 00:45:06,539 back of a postage stamp calculation. 791 00:45:06,539 --> 00:45:08,519 [Wilson] Another thing that impresses me is that 792 00:45:08,519 --> 00:45:10,619 Speer is constantly trying to force 793 00:45:10,619 --> 00:45:14,880 money on the people- [Gottfried] That's the German Minister of munitions. 794 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:16,619 [Wilson] Yes [Gottfried] Yes, and in fact, 795 00:45:16,619 --> 00:45:19,959 when they wouldn't take it, he lost interest. 796 00:45:19,959 --> 00:45:21,840 Because he figured they're not serious. 797 00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:24,339 [Wilson] And there could be obviously there 798 00:45:24,339 --> 00:45:25,619 were different, there was 799 00:45:25,619 --> 00:45:28,719 Heisenberg was one group in one place; 800 00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,860 I think there were three different groups. 801 00:45:31,860 --> 00:45:40,919 [Bethe] At least, well- 802 00:45:40,919 --> 00:45:43,019 let me go back to the Jungk book. 803 00:45:43,019 --> 00:45:45,959 [Wilson] Okay! [Bethe] The Jungk book, of course, 804 00:45:45,959 --> 00:45:51,679 is awful. And Heisenberg was very much embarrassed by it. 805 00:45:51,679 --> 00:45:54,499 In the Jungk book, he 806 00:45:54,499 --> 00:45:57,999 claimed that the German scientists were 807 00:45:57,999 --> 00:46:04,220 so moral that they didn't want to make an atomic bomb, 808 00:46:04,220 --> 00:46:06,959 even if they could. 809 00:46:08,530 --> 00:46:16,149 To me, it seems- well, later, after the war, apparently 810 00:46:16,149 --> 00:46:22,410 Heisenberg engaged in a running debate in journals 811 00:46:22,410 --> 00:46:31,910 like 'Nature' and the 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists', 812 00:46:31,910 --> 00:46:35,369 engaged in a running debate with Goudsmit 813 00:46:35,369 --> 00:46:41,970 in which he, Heisenberg, tried to emphasize this point 814 00:46:41,970 --> 00:46:50,370 that he refrained for moral reasons. 815 00:46:50,490 --> 00:46:52,829 I don't believe that. 816 00:46:52,829 --> 00:46:55,209 You [nb: Wilson] don't believe that. 817 00:46:58,010 --> 00:47:04,049 It seems to me that Heisenberg recognized very early in 818 00:47:04,049 --> 00:47:06,990 the development that this project 819 00:47:06,990 --> 00:47:11,569 was too big for Germany at war. 820 00:47:12,730 --> 00:47:14,909 As a matter of fact, 821 00:47:14,909 --> 00:47:16,909 I think he even 822 00:47:16,909 --> 00:47:24,130 underestimated the size and difficulty of the project. 823 00:47:24,130 --> 00:47:27,629 Those people thought that once you 824 00:47:27,629 --> 00:47:32,229 had a chain-reacting reactor 825 00:47:32,229 --> 00:47:36,609 you could make plutonium and that's all it is. [laughing] 826 00:47:36,609 --> 00:47:41,070 And that's ridiculous; that's only when it begins! 827 00:47:41,070 --> 00:47:47,089 If they had got their reactor and then 828 00:47:47,089 --> 00:47:54,410 wanted to enlarge it into industrial size, 829 00:47:54,410 --> 00:47:57,710 they would have had a terrible surprise because 830 00:47:57,710 --> 00:48:02,770 at one time the Hanford Reactor simply stopped. 831 00:48:05,090 --> 00:48:08,870 I think they would have been very puzzled. 832 00:48:08,870 --> 00:48:12,690 Fermi solved that problem, why it stopped. 833 00:48:14,669 --> 00:48:19,889 Then when you had the plutonium, 834 00:48:19,889 --> 00:48:23,590 to make a bomb is not at all straightforward. 835 00:48:23,590 --> 00:48:29,929 In the beginning, Bob mentioned the fact that 836 00:48:29,929 --> 00:48:34,209 Los Alamos was reorganized because it was 837 00:48:34,209 --> 00:48:38,790 found that plutonium had spontaneous fission, 838 00:48:38,790 --> 00:48:44,290 which would abort any nuclear weapon 839 00:48:44,290 --> 00:48:47,569 because it would pre-explode. 840 00:48:48,730 --> 00:48:52,150 And they would have had tremendous surprises; 841 00:48:52,150 --> 00:49:01,809 from having plutonium to the actual bomb is still a big way; 842 00:49:01,809 --> 00:49:05,769 we did not work at Los Alamos in vain. 843 00:49:05,769 --> 00:49:08,330 It was a hard problem! 844 00:49:08,330 --> 00:49:12,989 And I think they did not have the strength to do that. 845 00:49:12,989 --> 00:49:15,930 In fact, Bob Bacher, 846 00:49:15,930 --> 00:49:20,789 who was the division leader for 847 00:49:20,789 --> 00:49:26,369 everything else at Los Alamos, says the German could 848 00:49:26,369 --> 00:49:28,949 not possibly have done what we 849 00:49:28,949 --> 00:49:32,129 did at Los Alamos because they 850 00:49:32,129 --> 00:49:34,229 didn't have the kind of 851 00:49:34,229 --> 00:49:38,830 electronics that is necessary to investigate 852 00:49:38,830 --> 00:49:41,489 whether implosion will work. 853 00:49:41,489 --> 00:49:43,509 [Gottfried] But on the other hand, they could have 854 00:49:43,509 --> 00:49:45,809 built a Hiroshima-type bomb. 855 00:49:45,809 --> 00:49:51,229 [Bethe] But for that they would have had to separate uranium. 856 00:49:51,229 --> 00:49:54,469 They were not able to separate uranium. 857 00:49:54,469 --> 00:49:56,969 In fact, they gave up separation of 858 00:49:56,969 --> 00:50:02,190 uranium very early in the project. 859 00:50:02,190 --> 00:50:04,189 They still were working on it, 860 00:50:04,189 --> 00:50:07,829 but it was not the main line of the German- 861 00:50:07,829 --> 00:50:11,729 [Gottfried] But then, for the listeners,- [Wilson] I believed, 862 00:50:11,729 --> 00:50:15,810 to the end, that they were working on uranium. 863 00:50:15,810 --> 00:50:18,230 Because I felt that if I believed 864 00:50:18,230 --> 00:50:20,850 what you just said, I would have stopped. 865 00:50:20,850 --> 00:50:22,990 I would have not worked on that project. 866 00:50:22,990 --> 00:50:26,749 I didn't want to make some thing to put in 867 00:50:26,749 --> 00:50:31,230 the hands of the military people 868 00:50:31,230 --> 00:50:33,889 so that they could murder Japanese. 869 00:50:33,889 --> 00:50:37,689 I didn't- I was not working for that. 870 00:50:37,930 --> 00:50:41,789 I felt that the 871 00:50:41,789 --> 00:50:47,649 that the work was going on and I felt that: 872 00:50:47,649 --> 00:50:50,469 okay, there's a hard way of doing things. 873 00:50:50,469 --> 00:50:53,309 And it seemed to me we took the hard way. 874 00:50:53,309 --> 00:50:56,369 At one stage, I had a method of 875 00:50:56,369 --> 00:50:59,350 separating isotopes, it was a very simple method. 876 00:50:59,350 --> 00:51:01,109 It was just a year too late. 877 00:51:01,109 --> 00:51:03,709 It would have been cheap and 878 00:51:03,709 --> 00:51:06,630 by electromagnetic methods. 879 00:51:06,630 --> 00:51:08,189 I think it would have worked and 880 00:51:08,189 --> 00:51:10,089 I think it would have worked very well. 881 00:51:10,089 --> 00:51:14,589 And if I felt- 882 00:51:14,589 --> 00:51:15,830 I felt I had that. 883 00:51:15,830 --> 00:51:18,250 Somebody else could have had a better idea. 884 00:51:18,250 --> 00:51:20,890 Germans are supposed to have good ideas, 885 00:51:20,890 --> 00:51:23,849 and the past has shown that they did. 886 00:51:24,650 --> 00:51:31,890 If they had made the uranium bomb, 887 00:51:31,890 --> 00:51:34,549 that would have been straightforward. 888 00:51:34,549 --> 00:51:35,689 We knew how to do that 889 00:51:35,689 --> 00:51:37,530 when we came out to Los Alamos, 890 00:51:37,530 --> 00:51:40,169 we didn't need a Los Alamos for that. 891 00:51:40,169 --> 00:51:44,070 Ed Mcmillan had a perfectly good design, 892 00:51:44,070 --> 00:51:47,370 and the design never changed then the Germans 893 00:51:47,370 --> 00:51:49,170 could make probably better cannon [nb: unclear] 894 00:51:49,170 --> 00:51:51,379 than we could make, or as good. 895 00:51:51,379 --> 00:51:57,330 But anyway, it seemed to me that- and other nations, 896 00:51:57,330 --> 00:52:00,330 small nations like France, 897 00:52:00,330 --> 00:52:03,490 have made these things subsequently. 898 00:52:03,490 --> 00:52:06,269 I feel that they could have done that 899 00:52:06,269 --> 00:52:08,989 and that we were just and proper 900 00:52:08,989 --> 00:52:12,229 to have continued our work up to 901 00:52:12,229 --> 00:52:14,169 the last minute. Because we could have 902 00:52:14,169 --> 00:52:16,569 had very bitter surprises, 903 00:52:16,569 --> 00:52:19,629 I felt, from what the Germans were doing. 904 00:52:19,629 --> 00:52:23,789 [Gottfried] I should perhaps, for listeners, explain that there were 905 00:52:23,789 --> 00:52:28,609 two bombs developed at Los Alamos. 906 00:52:28,609 --> 00:52:32,440 One was based on uranium-235, 907 00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,839 which involved this difficult isotope separation, 908 00:52:35,839 --> 00:52:38,759 which was a very simple device that was never tested, 909 00:52:38,759 --> 00:52:42,220 and dropped on Hiroshima without prior testing. 910 00:52:42,220 --> 00:52:45,479 And involved this gun assembly in which 911 00:52:45,479 --> 00:52:49,680 two hemispheres of uranium 912 00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:53,800 were shot together to form the critical mass. 913 00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:57,560 The other is the plutonium bomb, 914 00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:01,380 which was used at Nagasaki, that required 915 00:53:01,380 --> 00:53:04,749 this extremely sophisticated- [Wilson] That was extremely sophisticated! 916 00:53:04,749 --> 00:53:06,119 [Gottfried] -implosion technique 917 00:53:06,119 --> 00:53:12,230 where a spherical assembly of plutonium is crushed. 918 00:53:12,230 --> 00:53:17,039 By an exterior shell of ordinary chemical explosives. 919 00:53:17,039 --> 00:53:21,780 And that is, as Bob has just said, very sophisticated. 920 00:53:22,300 --> 00:53:26,039 [Bethe] Bob, I agree with you that we had to 921 00:53:26,039 --> 00:53:30,180 expect the worst of the Germans. 922 00:53:32,660 --> 00:53:38,319 It would have been entirely possible that they might have 923 00:53:38,319 --> 00:53:41,219 separated uranium and then it would have 924 00:53:41,219 --> 00:53:44,339 been easy for them to go from there. 925 00:53:44,339 --> 00:53:49,059 But they decided very early in the game that they would not 926 00:53:49,059 --> 00:53:54,579 separate uranium isotopes. And from where they were 927 00:53:54,579 --> 00:53:58,620 it was a difficult project. 928 00:53:58,700 --> 00:54:02,839 [Wilson] But we didn't know that they- [Bethe] We didn't know that. 929 00:54:02,839 --> 00:54:05,820 [Wilson] So we had to expect the worst. [Bethe] Right. 930 00:54:05,820 --> 00:54:07,939 [Wilson] Some bright young guy would come up 931 00:54:07,939 --> 00:54:10,299 with a good method, and they would 932 00:54:10,299 --> 00:54:13,039 separate isotopes and they'd be off and running. 933 00:54:13,039 --> 00:54:14,379 [Bethe] Absolutely. 934 00:54:14,379 --> 00:54:15,719 [Wilson] But we did not know that, of course. 935 00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:17,759 [Bethe] We did not know that. 936 00:54:17,759 --> 00:54:21,739 And we did not know until the very end of the war 937 00:54:21,739 --> 00:54:24,860 how miserable the German project was. 938 00:54:24,860 --> 00:54:26,979 [Wilson] What a rotten show they had to put on. [Bethe] Yes. 939 00:54:26,979 --> 00:54:30,899 [Gottfried] But I'd like to come back to a point you just made. 940 00:54:30,899 --> 00:54:33,259 We've discussed quite a bit 941 00:54:33,259 --> 00:54:39,220 whether or not the German decision, 942 00:54:39,220 --> 00:54:43,360 the decision by the Heisenbergs and his colleagues 943 00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:48,860 were based on moral considerations. 944 00:54:48,860 --> 00:54:51,580 And you have spoken eloquently, Bob, 945 00:54:51,580 --> 00:54:53,359 about how you felt that you didn't 946 00:54:53,359 --> 00:54:55,239 want to be involved in making a weapon 947 00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:57,180 at the outside, 948 00:54:57,180 --> 00:54:58,719 and then you did, and 949 00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:03,520 that it was because of your fear of the Germans. 950 00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:07,799 But the question I would like to 951 00:55:07,799 --> 00:55:11,000 raise once we're talking about moral decisions 952 00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:17,040 is the continuation of the American project, 953 00:55:17,040 --> 00:55:19,399 after it was quite clear that 954 00:55:19,399 --> 00:55:22,340 Germany presented no nuclear threat, 955 00:55:22,340 --> 00:55:24,440 and there was no evidence 956 00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:26,740 whatsoever that Japan had a nuclear weapon. 957 00:55:26,740 --> 00:55:29,419 [Wilson] Right. [Gottfried] And yet the American project 958 00:55:29,419 --> 00:55:32,559 went on full steam as if 959 00:55:32,559 --> 00:55:34,049 Germany had never existed at that point. 960 00:55:34,049 --> 00:55:35,739 [Wilson] That's right. 961 00:55:36,020 --> 00:55:41,439 [Gottfried] It's my impression that- well, of course, 962 00:55:41,439 --> 00:55:43,759 we know that the government never, 963 00:55:43,759 --> 00:55:48,560 even for a moment, considered interrupting the process. 964 00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:53,119 We do know that there was concern in the scientific, 965 00:55:53,119 --> 00:55:55,900 amongst scientists, mainly in Chicago, 966 00:55:55,900 --> 00:56:00,805 as I understand it, about using the bomb, 967 00:56:00,805 --> 00:56:04,090 but I do not recall - 968 00:56:04,090 --> 00:56:07,129 and please tell us - 969 00:56:07,129 --> 00:56:10,949 that the concerns raised in 970 00:56:10,949 --> 00:56:13,369 Chicago, largely by Szilárd and Franck, 971 00:56:13,369 --> 00:56:19,350 as I remember, did not really arise in 1944 say, 972 00:56:19,350 --> 00:56:21,130 when it was becoming pretty 973 00:56:21,130 --> 00:56:23,069 clear that the Germans were not a threat. 974 00:56:23,069 --> 00:56:27,749 But only in 1945, 975 00:56:28,190 --> 00:56:33,209 before the use of the bomb became a hot issue, 976 00:56:33,209 --> 00:56:36,329 let's say, inside your group, - 977 00:56:36,329 --> 00:56:38,810 which had no power to make that decision anyway. 978 00:56:38,810 --> 00:56:42,309 But one thing that puzzles me is 979 00:56:42,309 --> 00:56:44,710 why when it became 980 00:56:44,710 --> 00:56:47,249 clear that Germany was not a nuclear threat, 981 00:56:47,249 --> 00:56:50,190 there was so little discussion, 982 00:56:50,190 --> 00:56:52,609 amongst the scientific community at least, 983 00:56:52,609 --> 00:56:54,529 as to why one should go on. 984 00:56:54,529 --> 00:56:58,449 Or am I wrong? Was that an incorrect statement? 985 00:56:58,449 --> 00:57:01,730 [Wilson] I think you're somewhat wrong. I think by and large, 986 00:57:01,730 --> 00:57:04,349 I mean, we could have walked away, 987 00:57:04,349 --> 00:57:06,590 for example, just left. 988 00:57:06,590 --> 00:57:09,720 And that's the tragedy 989 00:57:09,720 --> 00:57:12,179 of my life, as far as having to live with it 990 00:57:12,179 --> 00:57:14,879 that I did not leave Los Alamos 991 00:57:14,879 --> 00:57:18,480 at the time that the war was over in Europe. 992 00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:27,760 But there was discussion. There was lots of discussion. 993 00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,520 We had some formal discussion. 994 00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,560 I remember that one time I announced 995 00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:42,079 a meeting, in the winter time, 996 00:57:42,079 --> 00:57:43,680 must have been in perhaps 997 00:57:43,680 --> 00:57:46,919 January of 1945, something like that - 998 00:57:46,919 --> 00:57:48,939 maybe earlier, a month or a little- 999 00:57:48,939 --> 00:57:58,239 asking, at the time that it seemed that the war was over, 1000 00:57:58,239 --> 00:58:01,119 why did we not stop? 1001 00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:06,600 And I announced that around 1002 00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:09,320 the laboratory and Oppenheimer, 1003 00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:13,159 after warning me I'd be in trouble with the authorities, 1004 00:58:13,159 --> 00:58:17,739 he came to that, and I remember that Viki came, 1005 00:58:17,739 --> 00:58:20,920 perhaps 50 people came down to our building, 1006 00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:22,780 which was the cyclotron building, 1007 00:58:22,780 --> 00:58:28,999 and we had a discussion. Oppie, in his eloquent way, 1008 00:58:28,999 --> 00:58:33,179 carried the day. He's a person that we had 1009 00:58:33,179 --> 00:58:38,579 grown to trust; I had grown at least to trust him, and to feel 1010 00:58:38,579 --> 00:58:45,179 that he's the only person who had a link to the outside. 1011 00:58:45,179 --> 00:58:49,779 In any case, he made the big point 1012 00:58:49,779 --> 00:58:56,980 that the United Nations meeting 1013 00:58:56,980 --> 00:58:59,459 in San Francisco was coming up. 1014 00:58:59,459 --> 00:59:02,019 And that it would be well 1015 00:59:02,019 --> 00:59:05,099 if that meeting were made in 1016 00:59:05,099 --> 00:59:08,840 the knowledge of a nuclear bomb. 1017 00:59:09,480 --> 00:59:12,119 I found that persuasive, 1018 00:59:12,119 --> 00:59:14,409 and I think the other people at that meeting 1019 00:59:14,409 --> 00:59:17,579 found it persuasive that we should work hard, 1020 00:59:17,579 --> 00:59:21,180 we should have the test made and tested. 1021 00:59:21,180 --> 00:59:26,579 And so that the peace 1022 00:59:26,579 --> 00:59:29,919 that was going to be set up would be set up 1023 00:59:29,919 --> 00:59:31,659 not in a secret way, 1024 00:59:31,659 --> 00:59:36,680 but in the knowledge that there was an atomic bomb. 1025 00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:38,899 That was the argument that 1026 00:59:38,899 --> 00:59:41,500 Oppenheimer had eloquently used, 1027 00:59:41,500 --> 00:59:44,119 and I found it strong. 1028 00:59:44,119 --> 00:59:45,899 Now, that had nothing to do with 1029 00:59:45,899 --> 00:59:48,479 the use of the bomb at all. 1030 00:59:48,479 --> 00:59:52,239 On the other hand, I felt about the use of the bomb, - 1031 00:59:52,239 --> 00:59:53,879 although I'd had a chance 1032 00:59:53,879 --> 00:59:56,459 to make recommendations and did - 1033 00:59:56,740 --> 00:59:59,840 well, we were just kids. 1034 00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:02,679 I mean, we were not important people. 1035 01:00:02,679 --> 01:00:07,519 I mean, that was for the President to decide; that was for Stimson! 1036 01:00:07,519 --> 01:00:10,439 [Gottfried] Sure. It was clear that you were not gonna make that decision. 1037 01:00:10,439 --> 01:00:12,180 [Wilson] Yeah, it was not our decision. [crosstalk] 1038 01:00:12,180 --> 01:00:14,279 [Gottfried] -done is to say that 'I refuse to go on'. 1039 01:00:14,279 --> 01:00:16,299 [Wilson] Yeah, all we could have done- [Gottfried] Without you guys, 1040 01:00:16,299 --> 01:00:17,980 they couldn't have gone on. [laughter] 1041 01:00:17,980 --> 01:00:20,060 [Wilson] Well, enough would've stayed. 1042 01:00:20,060 --> 01:00:21,319 [Gottfried] Enough of you. 1043 01:00:21,319 --> 01:00:24,979 So how did you feel about that issue, 1044 01:00:24,979 --> 01:00:30,440 about continuing after Germany was clearly defeated? 1045 01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:34,140 [Bethe] It never occurred to me to stop. 1046 01:00:34,140 --> 01:00:40,679 And no matter what we might have decided, 1047 01:00:40,679 --> 01:00:47,040 once Roosevelt had decided to make the bomb, 1048 01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:50,799 that was it. We had no influence on that. 1049 01:00:50,799 --> 01:00:56,840 [Gottfried] It seems to me that that was quite a widespread feeling. 1050 01:00:56,840 --> 01:00:59,799 I remember talking to Viki Weisskopf about it, 1051 01:00:59,799 --> 01:01:03,499 and he said that it was only after the bomb was used 1052 01:01:03,499 --> 01:01:07,800 that he actually sort of sat back and thought to himself, 1053 01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:11,640 why didn't we think about this earlier? 1054 01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:13,860 There was such a momentum in the problem. 1055 01:01:13,860 --> 01:01:15,500 [Wilson] There was a lot of momentum. 1056 01:01:15,500 --> 01:01:18,280 [Gottfried] And now in the new book on Dick Feynman, 1057 01:01:18,280 --> 01:01:22,340 there's a similar statements 1058 01:01:22,340 --> 01:01:24,019 from Feynman also that he just, 1059 01:01:24,019 --> 01:01:26,739 you know, the thing was going and he 1060 01:01:26,739 --> 01:01:28,020 wanted to know the answer 1061 01:01:28,020 --> 01:01:30,179 and he had stopped worrying about, 1062 01:01:30,179 --> 01:01:33,060 he'd never thought about these other things. 1063 01:01:33,060 --> 01:01:34,520 But it is interesting 1064 01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:37,560 that one should bear that in mind in passing 1065 01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:40,479 too many judgments, in a way, on the Germans too. 1066 01:01:40,479 --> 01:01:41,999 It seems to me. 1067 01:01:41,999 --> 01:01:46,599 [Wilson] I think there's one other thing that I would say though, 1068 01:01:46,599 --> 01:01:51,399 the very bad feelings 1069 01:01:51,399 --> 01:01:55,080 that I had about the German workers, 1070 01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:59,839 and they were very intense at the end of the war, 1071 01:01:59,839 --> 01:02:05,250 changed because of Vietnam. 1072 01:02:05,250 --> 01:02:08,650 [Gottfried] Right. [Wilson] I thought that- 1073 01:02:08,650 --> 01:02:09,989 [Gottfried] -that was an interesting point. 1074 01:02:09,989 --> 01:02:13,370 [Wilson] I felt that- [Gottfried] -being a refugee from Germany myself, 1075 01:02:13,370 --> 01:02:16,209 I had very strong feelings about the Germans too. [laughing] 1076 01:02:16,209 --> 01:02:18,529 Hans and I are both- 1077 01:02:18,529 --> 01:02:20,749 [Wilson] -at that time I thought maybe there was something 1078 01:02:20,749 --> 01:02:22,489 the way Germans were raised 1079 01:02:22,489 --> 01:02:26,229 that was different than the way Americans were raised, 1080 01:02:26,229 --> 01:02:30,410 or British were raised. But with Vietnam, 1081 01:02:30,410 --> 01:02:33,389 I came to the conclusion that we were all the 1082 01:02:33,389 --> 01:02:36,670 same, and we have met the enemy 1083 01:02:36,670 --> 01:02:39,669 and the enemy is us. [laughing] 1084 01:02:39,669 --> 01:02:42,269 [Gottfried] Well, I think on that point perhaps we'll stop. 1085 01:02:42,269 --> 01:02:43,509 Thank you both very, 1086 01:02:43,509 --> 01:02:45,770 very much for engaging 1087 01:02:45,770 --> 01:02:49,009 in this very interesting discussion. Thank you.