Schematic diagram of uranium isotope separation in the calutron.

Control panels and operators for calutrons at the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant.

A Calutron was a mass spectrometer used for separating the isotopes of uranium developed by Ernest O. Lawrence during the Manhattan Project. Its name is a concatenation of Cal. U.-tron, in tribute to the University of California, Lawrence's institution and the contractor of the Los Alamos laboratory. They were implemented for industrial scale uranium enrichment at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee Y-12 plant established during the war and provided much of the uranium used for the "Little Boy" nuclear weapon, which was dropped onto Hiroshima in 1945. circa early 1940s diagram of uranium isotope separation in the calutron File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... circa early 1940s diagram of uranium isotope separation in the calutron File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Download high resolution version (640x684, 72 KB)Control panels and operators for calutrons at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ... Download high resolution version (640x684, 72 KB)Control panels and operators for calutrons at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ... Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle, LLC. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville. ... Mass spectrometry is a technique for separating ions by their mass-to-charge (m/z) ratios. ... Isotopes are atoms of a chemical element whose nuclei have the same atomic number, Z, but different atomic weights, A. The word isotope, meaning at the same place, comes from the fact that isotopes are located at the same place on the periodic table. ... General Name, Symbol, Number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Atomic mass 238. ... Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 - August 27, 1958) was an American physicist and Nobel laureate best known for his invention of the cyclotron. ... Control panels and operators for calutrons at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ... In formal language theory (and therefore in programming languages), concatenation is the operation of joining two character strings end to end. ... The University of California (UC) is a public university system in the state of California. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... Enriched uranium is uranium whose uranium-235 content has been increased through the process of isotope separation. ... Oak Ridge is a city located in Anderson and Roane Counties in eastern Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Knoxville. ... Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle, LLC. ORNL is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near Knoxville. ... Little Boy was the code name of the atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 by the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay piloted by Lt. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Main keep of Hiroshima Castle The city of Hiroshima (広島市; -shi) is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest of Japans islands. ... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In a mass spectrometer, a vaporised quantity of a sample is bombarded with high energy electrons which causes them to become positively charged ions. They are then accelerated and subsequently deflected by magnetic fields. They then collide with a plate, producing a measurable electric current. The mass of the ions can be calculated according to the strength of the field and the charge of the ions. Mass spectrometry is a technique for separating ions by their mass-to-charge (m/z) ratios. ... Properties The electron (also called negatron, commonly represented as e−) is a subatomic particle. ... ... Current flowing through a wire produces a magnetic field (M) around the wire. ... In electricity, current is the rate of flow of charges, usually through a metal wire or some other electrical conductor. ... Mass is a property of physical objects that, roughly speaking, measures the amount of matter they contain. ...

To maximize the separation and the use of the large electromagnet required, multiple Calutrons were arranged around the magnet in a massive oval, which resembled (and were called) race tracks. Two types of Calutrons were created, known as Alpha and Beta, as the technology was improved. Magnetic separation was later abandoned in favor of the more complicated, but more effective, gaseous diffusion method. An oval or ovoid was originally an egg shape (from Latin OVVM); it is now usually used to refer to ellipses, but can also mean any similar shape, such as egg shapes or race-course shapes (a semicircle on either side of a quadrilateral). ... A race track (or racetrack), is a purpose-built facility for the conducting of races. ... -1...

After the 1990 Gulf War, UNSCOM determined that Iraq had been pursuing a calutron program to enrich uranium.^[1] United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was a United Nations organisation performing arms inspections in Iraq after the Gulf War. ...

External links

1. ^  William Langewiesche, Point of No Return, Atlantic Magazine, Jan/Feb 2006, p107, citing the work of Mark Hibbs, Nucleonics Week, 1992.

• "The Calutron"
• Main Calutron patents:

• U.S. Patent 2709222 Methods of and apparatus for separating materials (Ernest O. Lawrence)
• U.S. Patent 2719924 Magnetic shims (Robert Oppenheimer and Stanley Frankel)
• U.S. Patent 2847576 Calutron system (Ernest O. Lawrence)