FACTOID #53: If you thought Antarctica was inhospitable, think again - its land area is only ninety-eight percent ice. Reassuringly, the other 2% is categorised as "barren rock".
Samuel Goudsmit (1902–1978) was a Dutch-American physicist famous for jointly proposing the concept of electron spin with George Eugene Uhlenbeck. 1902 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1978 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... In physics, spin is an intrinsic angular momentum associated with microscopic particles. ... George Eugene Uhlenbeck (December 6, 1900 – October 31, 1988) was a U.S. (Indonesian-born) physicist. ...
He was also the scientific head of the ALSOS mission of the Manhattan Project, which was designed to assess the progress of the Nazi atomic bomb project. Goudsmit concluded that the Germans did not get close to creating a weapon, which he attributed to the inability of science to function under a totalitarian state (the development of atomic weapons by at least two other totalitarian states has been seen to go against this conclusion). His other conclusion, that the German scientists simply did not understand the science of nuclear fission, has been long since rebutted by later historians. Nevertheless his assessment of the lack of progress in the German program — if not his conclusions as to why it was that way — have generally held up over time. Project ALSOS, also called Operation Alsos, was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies (principally Britain and the United States), branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research and... Control panels and operators for calutrons at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ... The German experimental nuclear pile at Haigerloch The German nuclear energy project was an endeavor by scientists during World War II in Nazi Germany to develop nuclear energy and an atomic bomb for practical use. ... The concept of Totalitarianism is a typology or ideal-type used by some political scientists to encapsulate the characteristics of a number of twentieth century regimes that mobilized entire populations in support of the state or an ideology. ... Sketch of induced nuclear fission, a neutron (n) strikes a uranium nucleus which splits into similar products (F. P.), and releases more neutrons to continue the process, and energy in the form of gamma and other radiation. ...
SamuelGoudsmit (1902–1978) was a Dutch-American physicist famous for jointly proposing the concept of electron spin with George Eugene Uhlenbeck.
He was also the scientific head of the Alsos mission of the Manhattan Project, which was designed to assess the progress of the Nazi atomic bomb project.
Goudsmit concluded that the Germans did not get close to creating a weapon, which he attributed to the inability of science to function under a totalitarian state (the development of atomic weapons by at least two other totalitarian states has been seen to go against this conclusion).
It was led, technically, by SamuelGoudsmit and militarily by Boris Pash.
Compared to the Manhattan Project, one of the largest scientific endeavors of all time, the German project was considerably underfunded and understaffed, and it is questionable whether Germany would have had the resources or isolation which were required for the Allies to produce such a weapon.
Goudsmit, in a monograph published two years after the end of the war, further concluded that a principle reason for the failure of the German project was that science could not flourish under totalitarianism -- an argument seemingly rebutted by the Soviet Union's development of a nuclear weapon by 1949.
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