WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.267 --> 00:00:03.567 -...going to do is, you'll see this room switch over slightly, 00:00:03.567 --> 00:00:07.334 and before we show ourselves here on the webcam, 00:00:07.334 --> 00:00:10.501 I'm going to point out a few important features here. 00:00:10.501 --> 00:00:15.667 So here shortly, you should see Rob and I pop up on screen. 00:00:15.667 --> 00:00:18.667 So there we go. Hey, everybody. 00:00:18.667 --> 00:00:20.534 -Hey. -How's it going? 00:00:20.534 --> 00:00:24.000 There is a chat pod below us right here, 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.400 and in this chat pod 00:00:25.400 --> 00:00:27.300 is where you're going to be typing questions 00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:31.901 for us and for Steve Sheinkin, who's about to come on here. 00:00:31.901 --> 00:00:34.767 And I will be looking at your questions 00:00:34.767 --> 00:00:37.701 throughout this program and kind of jotting them down here, 00:00:37.701 --> 00:00:39.667 and I'll use those for our Q&A session 00:00:39.667 --> 00:00:41.501 here in a little bit for all of us, 00:00:41.501 --> 00:00:44.000 so that'll come at the end of the program. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:46.067 How we're going to basically do this today is, 00:00:46.067 --> 00:00:48.834 we're going to invite Steve to come on first to share about, 00:00:48.834 --> 00:00:50.834 of course, his books that you see on screen, 00:00:50.834 --> 00:00:53.968 and specifically his book, "Bomb" telling that great, 00:00:53.968 --> 00:00:56.400 fascinating story, and then after that, 00:00:56.400 --> 00:00:59.834 Rob and I are going to pull apart bits and pieces of "Bomb," 00:00:59.834 --> 00:01:01.300 and we're going to actually talk about 00:01:01.300 --> 00:01:04.067 certain sections of the work, 00:01:04.067 --> 00:01:05.801 and we're going to show you some -- 00:01:05.801 --> 00:01:07.567 We're going to ask you poll questions about it. 00:01:07.567 --> 00:01:09.901 We're going to show you some neat demonstrations 00:01:09.901 --> 00:01:12.701 related to those concepts in the book. 00:01:12.701 --> 00:01:14.133 And so it should be a lot of fun, 00:01:14.133 --> 00:01:15.267 and if you have the book with you, 00:01:15.267 --> 00:01:16.667 we'll reference specific pages 00:01:16.667 --> 00:01:18.868 so you could even follow along with us, 00:01:18.868 --> 00:01:20.667 so that's basically how it goes. 00:01:20.667 --> 00:01:23.000 And now, I'm actually going to invite Steve, 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:24.467 if you want to switch on your mike 00:01:24.467 --> 00:01:27.601 and your webcam so students can see you, too. 00:01:27.601 --> 00:01:29.767 While you're doing that, I'm going to introduce you, 00:01:29.767 --> 00:01:31.534 so you guys can, of course, 00:01:31.534 --> 00:01:34.534 see the many books that Steve has written. 00:01:34.534 --> 00:01:35.567 Oh, there we go. -Here. 00:01:35.567 --> 00:01:37.234 -Hey, Steve. All right. 00:01:37.234 --> 00:01:39.100 And it looks like we can hear you, too, which is good. 00:01:39.100 --> 00:01:41.100 -I hear you. -I'm going to, of course, 00:01:41.100 --> 00:01:42.467 introduce you first, 00:01:42.467 --> 00:01:47.901 and then Rob and I will hide while you present, so. 00:01:47.901 --> 00:01:52.133 But Steve has written many books for students your age out there, 00:01:52.133 --> 00:01:54.200 and many award-winning books, 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:56.334 and so I actually pulled up your biography, 00:01:56.334 --> 00:01:57.534 and there's so many awards, 00:01:57.534 --> 00:02:00.067 I feel like I can't even name them all. 00:02:00.067 --> 00:02:02.167 But three of Steve's books actually have been 00:02:02.167 --> 00:02:03.868 National Book Award finalists, 00:02:03.868 --> 00:02:07.634 including "Bomb," which we're talking about today. 00:02:07.634 --> 00:02:11.801 And, in addition to that, there's also been 00:02:11.801 --> 00:02:16.267 Newbery Honor Medals, including "Bomb," of course. 00:02:16.267 --> 00:02:20.234 There's been a YASLA Award of Excellence in nonfiction books, 00:02:20.234 --> 00:02:22.434 and the list goes on and on and on, 00:02:22.434 --> 00:02:23.901 and you can see it's about so many different 00:02:23.901 --> 00:02:25.367 topics in history, 00:02:25.367 --> 00:02:27.801 and I caught one of your interviews where you were saying 00:02:27.801 --> 00:02:29.901 that you were a recovering textbook writer, 00:02:29.901 --> 00:02:32.534 which I'm sure you'll want to share that 00:02:32.534 --> 00:02:34.033 with students out there, 00:02:34.033 --> 00:02:38.601 and how you transitioned from textbooks to, of course, 00:02:38.601 --> 00:02:40.434 writing these wonderful stories. 00:02:40.434 --> 00:02:42.634 And as I said, Steve today will be profiling his 00:02:42.634 --> 00:02:43.901 Newbery Honor book, 00:02:43.901 --> 00:02:46.701 his National Book Award finalist book, "Bomb," 00:02:46.701 --> 00:02:49.334 which is a fascinating story of the race to build 00:02:49.334 --> 00:02:51.100 and steal the atomic bomb. 00:02:51.100 --> 00:02:52.467 Steve, I'm going to let you take it away. 00:02:52.467 --> 00:02:54.501 Guys, you'll see us at the end of the program 00:02:54.501 --> 00:02:55.834 when Steve is all done. 00:02:55.834 --> 00:02:56.934 Thanks so much, Steve. -Okay. 00:02:56.934 --> 00:02:59.167 Thank you for that very good intro. 00:02:59.167 --> 00:03:02.133 And, yeah, what you heard right there was correct 00:03:02.133 --> 00:03:04.267 about being a textbook writer. 00:03:04.267 --> 00:03:06.968 I'm not going to talk about that, but I am sorry about it, 00:03:06.968 --> 00:03:08.567 because I know I never liked those books 00:03:08.567 --> 00:03:12.400 when I was in school, and I did that for years, 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:13.667 but the good thing that came out of it 00:03:13.667 --> 00:03:17.467 was that I kept finding all these great stories 00:03:17.467 --> 00:03:20.767 that I thought could make really good books 00:03:20.767 --> 00:03:21.968 because when I was in school, 00:03:21.968 --> 00:03:23.400 I used to think history was boring, 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:25.634 which it totally isn't, but it was just 00:03:25.634 --> 00:03:28.000 because it was being taught as a list of names, 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:29.701 of dates, of facts. 00:03:29.701 --> 00:03:31.400 So I started to think, "Well, what if we took 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:34.434 some of this stuff and made it into stories 00:03:34.434 --> 00:03:36.501 instead of lists of things to memorize?", 00:03:36.501 --> 00:03:38.100 and that's what I'm trying to do now, 00:03:38.100 --> 00:03:40.400 and that's what these books are all about. 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:42.667 But I'm going to jump right in to talking about "Bomb," 00:03:42.667 --> 00:03:44.934 which is the one that we're here to talk about. 00:03:44.934 --> 00:03:49.534 And so, let's get going here. 00:03:49.534 --> 00:03:51.667 The first picture really is the idea. 00:03:51.667 --> 00:03:54.400 I call it the idea because every time I start a book, 00:03:54.400 --> 00:03:56.400 it always starts with an idea. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.767 And again, like I'm saying, I want it to be a story, 00:03:59.767 --> 00:04:02.868 not just a list of things to learn, 00:04:02.868 --> 00:04:04.601 and so I think in terms of movies. 00:04:04.601 --> 00:04:08.300 I had worked on movies for a while, too, in my 20s, 00:04:08.300 --> 00:04:09.868 or a novel. 00:04:09.868 --> 00:04:11.334 And so, of course, you need a hook. 00:04:11.334 --> 00:04:14.133 You need something, and in this case, it was this character, 00:04:14.133 --> 00:04:15.868 Theodore Hall, and even this picture. 00:04:15.868 --> 00:04:17.234 I love this picture. 00:04:17.234 --> 00:04:19.234 Now, when you look at it, 00:04:19.234 --> 00:04:21.734 I can't see anyone nodding or not nodding, 00:04:21.734 --> 00:04:25.200 but does it kind of look like a police photo? 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:28.834 You know what I mean, like a mug shot? 00:04:28.834 --> 00:04:30.634 And that's what I first saw. 00:04:30.634 --> 00:04:34.033 I saw this young guy in this kind of mugshot-looking picture, 00:04:34.033 --> 00:04:35.801 but then I realized as I read a little more 00:04:35.801 --> 00:04:38.100 that this was not a mugshot. 00:04:38.100 --> 00:04:39.400 This was his I.D. badge, 00:04:39.400 --> 00:04:43.234 so he would wear it right on his shirt, 00:04:43.234 --> 00:04:45.033 and it was the I.D. badge for Los Alamos, 00:04:45.033 --> 00:04:47.267 this top-secret lab in New Mexico 00:04:47.267 --> 00:04:48.701 where American scientists 00:04:48.701 --> 00:04:51.968 and their allies were trying to build an atomic bomb, 00:04:51.968 --> 00:04:54.100 and I thought, "Wow. That is kind of amazing. 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:57.901 This guy looks kind of young to be building an atomic bomb," 00:04:57.901 --> 00:04:59.033 and he was. 00:04:59.033 --> 00:05:01.334 He was only 18 years old, and I thought, 00:05:01.334 --> 00:05:03.067 "That's an interesting way into this story, 00:05:03.067 --> 00:05:05.667 an 18-year-old building a bomb." 00:05:05.667 --> 00:05:07.667 And then I realized as I read more 00:05:07.667 --> 00:05:08.934 because I'd never heard of this guy, 00:05:08.934 --> 00:05:11.467 Theodore Hall, that not only was he a scientist, 00:05:11.467 --> 00:05:13.434 he was also a spy. 00:05:13.434 --> 00:05:16.834 He also became a spy and started stealing information 00:05:16.834 --> 00:05:19.434 out of this top-secret lab, 00:05:19.434 --> 00:05:22.534 and I thought, "Wow. That's it. An 18-year-old scientist-spy. 00:05:22.534 --> 00:05:25.067 That's my guy," and that's when I decided to do this book, 00:05:25.067 --> 00:05:29.267 but I had no idea at the time exactly how to organize it 00:05:29.267 --> 00:05:31.434 or which stories would be in it and which wouldn't, 00:05:31.434 --> 00:05:33.334 and that's what I'm going to talk about now 00:05:33.334 --> 00:05:35.167 is kind of how I figured all that out. 00:05:35.167 --> 00:05:36.434 I of course did a lot of reading. 00:05:36.434 --> 00:05:38.033 This is what my office might look like, 00:05:38.033 --> 00:05:39.167 although this is very neat. 00:05:39.167 --> 00:05:41.267 Usually, my stuff is all over the place. 00:05:41.267 --> 00:05:44.133 But I'll start just the same way you would for something 00:05:44.133 --> 00:05:45.767 you were doing for school, go to the library, 00:05:45.767 --> 00:05:48.601 and I'd get books, and of course do a lot of reading online 00:05:48.601 --> 00:05:51.033 as well, old loose papers, things like, 00:05:51.033 --> 00:05:52.868 but it starts usually with just a lot of books, 00:05:52.868 --> 00:05:54.434 a big pile of books. 00:05:54.434 --> 00:05:56.167 And so as I'm reading and taking notes, 00:05:56.167 --> 00:05:58.601 that could go on for months, 00:05:58.601 --> 00:06:01.467 but I started to see that there are really three 00:06:01.467 --> 00:06:03.400 story lines in it, 00:06:03.400 --> 00:06:05.067 and I wanted to kind of weave them together 00:06:05.067 --> 00:06:07.901 the way movies or TV shows do, 00:06:07.901 --> 00:06:10.234 where I got a couple stories going 00:06:10.234 --> 00:06:11.767 and then kind of started mixing them, 00:06:11.767 --> 00:06:13.267 cutting from one to the other 00:06:13.267 --> 00:06:16.067 because I think that could make the story really fun to read, 00:06:16.067 --> 00:06:17.501 and the first part was the scientists. 00:06:17.501 --> 00:06:19.133 That's the obvious part, 00:06:19.133 --> 00:06:22.067 and the scientists who discovered the science 00:06:22.067 --> 00:06:24.934 that led to this race to build a bomb, 00:06:24.934 --> 00:06:27.167 and it started in Germany, actually, 00:06:27.167 --> 00:06:29.334 with these scientists who discovered fission, 00:06:29.334 --> 00:06:30.601 which is something you might read about 00:06:30.601 --> 00:06:31.834 more in a science class, 00:06:31.834 --> 00:06:34.267 you'd think, maybe, than a history class. 00:06:34.267 --> 00:06:38.467 But these scientists in Germany were doing experiments in a lab, 00:06:38.467 --> 00:06:41.267 and they realized they could split an atom, a uranium atom, 00:06:41.267 --> 00:06:43.868 which had been thought to be impossible. 00:06:43.868 --> 00:06:46.100 Scientists knew about atoms, but they had always assumed 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:50.200 that they could never be split any further or any smaller, 00:06:50.200 --> 00:06:51.634 and these scientists discovered, yes, 00:06:51.634 --> 00:06:53.367 if you bombarded them with neutrons, 00:06:53.367 --> 00:06:55.133 these tiny particles, 00:06:55.133 --> 00:07:00.400 that it would split the nucleus of an atom, of the uranium atom, 00:07:00.400 --> 00:07:03.968 and these are two of the scientists who figured it out, 00:07:03.968 --> 00:07:07.934 and this is a really simple drawing that they made to try 00:07:07.934 --> 00:07:09.200 and explain what was happening, 00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:11.234 and of course, it's oversimplified, 00:07:11.234 --> 00:07:13.767 but if you could picture the speeding neutron 00:07:13.767 --> 00:07:17.367 hitting this nucleus of an atom, 00:07:17.367 --> 00:07:19.100 they called it the liquid drop formula. 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:20.534 It would almost act like a liquid drop 00:07:20.534 --> 00:07:24.467 and start to break apart, like in point two here, 00:07:24.467 --> 00:07:27.100 and then would actually split, 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:30.234 forming two totally separate atoms at that point, 00:07:30.234 --> 00:07:33.467 and in doing so, it would release a little bit of energy, 00:07:33.467 --> 00:07:34.868 and this woman in the picture, 00:07:34.868 --> 00:07:38.634 Lise Meitner, who was a great physicist, realized 00:07:38.634 --> 00:07:42.033 and calculated very quickly that the energy released 00:07:42.033 --> 00:07:43.934 by this splitting of one uranium atom, 00:07:43.934 --> 00:07:46.167 which would be relatively small, really, 00:07:46.167 --> 00:07:48.467 it would be enough to make a grain of sand jump, 00:07:48.467 --> 00:07:50.534 say, like, that high, a couple inches, 00:07:50.534 --> 00:07:53.767 which doesn't seem like much, but they realized pretty quickly 00:07:53.767 --> 00:07:56.667 as they start thinking about this, 00:07:56.667 --> 00:07:59.000 "Well, if one atom releases that much energy, 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:00.734 what if a clump of atoms?" 00:08:00.734 --> 00:08:02.434 And it's all theoretical, so they were thinking, 00:08:02.434 --> 00:08:05.667 "What if, you know, a ball of atoms, a clump like this -- 00:08:05.667 --> 00:08:10.868 Picture the size of a basketball or something -- 00:08:10.868 --> 00:08:12.834 And you got those together, 00:08:12.834 --> 00:08:14.734 and if you could get a chain reaction 00:08:14.734 --> 00:08:17.467 going where those atoms split within a fraction of a second," 00:08:17.467 --> 00:08:20.133 and they're all thinking, "This is theoretically possible. 00:08:20.133 --> 00:08:21.601 That would be a huge explosion 00:08:21.601 --> 00:08:24.901 because each atom splitting would give off a bit of energy. 00:08:24.901 --> 00:08:26.868 All together, it would make a massive explosion, 00:08:26.868 --> 00:08:31.267 much more powerful than TNT or any other kind of explosive." 00:08:31.267 --> 00:08:35.067 And it was all just an interesting thing 00:08:35.067 --> 00:08:36.467 to think about at the time. 00:08:36.467 --> 00:08:39.434 Scientists weren't trying to make bombs or weapons, 00:08:39.434 --> 00:08:44.267 but it happened in Germany just as Adolf Hitler 00:08:44.267 --> 00:08:46.834 was starting World War II, 00:08:46.834 --> 00:08:48.701 and beginning by invading Poland 00:08:48.701 --> 00:08:51.334 and then much of the rest of Europe, 00:08:51.334 --> 00:08:53.334 so just as he's taking over Europe 00:08:53.334 --> 00:08:56.601 and really has his eyes on taking over the whole world, 00:08:56.601 --> 00:08:58.901 this discovery is made in Germany, 00:08:58.901 --> 00:09:01.133 and that's what makes it so significant. 00:09:01.133 --> 00:09:05.367 So what if -- And you'd want to think about a dystopian, 00:09:05.367 --> 00:09:08.033 a really scary what-if kind of scenario for the world -- 00:09:08.033 --> 00:09:09.968 What if Hitler had been the first 00:09:09.968 --> 00:09:12.767 to get his hands on this new kind of bomb? 00:09:12.767 --> 00:09:14.167 And that easily could have happened, 00:09:14.167 --> 00:09:16.267 and that's what this story is all about. 00:09:18.634 --> 00:09:21.167 So the news spread quickly among scientists. 00:09:21.167 --> 00:09:22.834 Some of them -- I'm going to go back just for a second 00:09:22.834 --> 00:09:24.434 and show Lise Meitner again. 00:09:24.434 --> 00:09:27.601 A lot of the scientists in this very small community 00:09:27.601 --> 00:09:30.467 of physicists in Europe were Jewish, 00:09:30.467 --> 00:09:32.367 so they either fled from Germany 00:09:32.367 --> 00:09:35.601 to escape the Nazis like Lise Meitner did, 00:09:35.601 --> 00:09:40.534 and a lot of them came to the United States, 00:09:40.534 --> 00:09:41.734 and that's where I'm going to go next 00:09:41.734 --> 00:09:43.300 because when they came to the United States, 00:09:43.300 --> 00:09:44.400 they brought this news. 00:09:44.400 --> 00:09:45.968 They said, "Wow. These scientists, 00:09:45.968 --> 00:09:47.801 we've discovered this new thing called fission. 00:09:47.801 --> 00:09:49.400 You can split an atom, and it might lead 00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:51.434 to the making of a new kind of bomb, 00:09:51.434 --> 00:09:53.300 and the Germans are already working on it. 00:09:53.300 --> 00:09:55.234 Hitler may get this bomb first, 00:09:55.234 --> 00:09:56.467 so we've got to get serious about it," 00:09:56.467 --> 00:09:57.868 and that's where this picture comes in, 00:09:57.868 --> 00:10:00.033 which I'm sure you'll recognize the white-haired guy 00:10:00.033 --> 00:10:01.667 is Albert Einstein. 00:10:01.667 --> 00:10:03.367 And he was one of the German scientists 00:10:03.367 --> 00:10:05.300 who had fled from Europe, 00:10:05.300 --> 00:10:08.000 and so the scientists who had come recently said, 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:10.133 "We need to get this news to the president, 00:10:10.133 --> 00:10:11.801 President Franklin Roosevelt, 00:10:11.801 --> 00:10:14.767 so that he starts trying to build a bomb first 00:10:14.767 --> 00:10:18.033 so we can get it before the Germans do." 00:10:18.033 --> 00:10:19.267 And that's what this picture is about. 00:10:19.267 --> 00:10:21.334 They found Einstein's beach house. 00:10:21.334 --> 00:10:23.367 He wasn't really keeping up on the latest in science, 00:10:23.367 --> 00:10:26.467 but these younger scientists found him, told him the news. 00:10:26.467 --> 00:10:29.501 He agreed it was very serious, and he wrote this famous letter, 00:10:29.501 --> 00:10:31.467 which is what the picture is of here, 00:10:31.467 --> 00:10:34.534 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president, saying, 00:10:34.534 --> 00:10:36.367 "We better get serious about building this bomb 00:10:36.367 --> 00:10:38.734 because the Germans already have a head start on it," 00:10:38.734 --> 00:10:41.400 and that's what sparked what became known 00:10:41.400 --> 00:10:43.000 as the Manhattan Project, 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.367 this effort by the Americans to try and build a bomb, 00:10:46.367 --> 00:10:49.934 which is really at the heart of this story. 00:10:49.934 --> 00:10:51.667 This is a really interesting drawing. 00:10:51.667 --> 00:10:53.868 We don't have a actual photograph of this, 00:10:53.868 --> 00:10:56.968 but one of the early experiments scientists in America 00:10:56.968 --> 00:10:59.934 did was to build this -- They called it a pile. 00:10:59.934 --> 00:11:03.100 It was really a really -- a nuclear reactor. 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:06.701 It was very much like what these days is in nuclear power plants, 00:11:06.701 --> 00:11:10.467 which seems like a really primitive version of it, 00:11:10.467 --> 00:11:11.868 but they were in Chicago, 00:11:11.868 --> 00:11:16.467 and they needed to test this chain reaction idea, 00:11:16.467 --> 00:11:17.934 and so scientists -- 00:11:17.934 --> 00:11:20.000 This is actually under the football stadium 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:22.267 at the University of Chicago in a squash court, 00:11:22.267 --> 00:11:23.901 sort of like a racquetball court. 00:11:23.901 --> 00:11:26.067 It was the best space they could find, and it was freezing. 00:11:26.067 --> 00:11:28.901 They're in the middle of winter, but they built this pile of -- 00:11:28.901 --> 00:11:31.767 The black squares you see are graphite, 00:11:31.767 --> 00:11:33.934 just like the material in pencil leads -- 00:11:33.934 --> 00:11:38.934 and inside them are slugs or kind of pieces of uranium, 00:11:38.934 --> 00:11:40.767 and they wanted to get a bunch of uranium together, 00:11:40.767 --> 00:11:43.701 and the graphite worked as what they called a moderator, 00:11:43.701 --> 00:11:46.901 and it would slow down the reaction, 00:11:46.901 --> 00:11:49.334 and they wanted to see if they could get a chain reaction, 00:11:49.334 --> 00:11:51.400 if one atom splitting would lead to another splitting 00:11:51.400 --> 00:11:53.133 and another and another and another. 00:11:53.133 --> 00:11:55.968 Now, does it seem sort of crazy to do that 00:11:55.968 --> 00:11:58.501 in the middle of Chicago? 00:11:58.501 --> 00:12:00.100 A lot of people who knew about it -- 00:12:00.100 --> 00:12:02.901 Of course, it was top secret -- but some of the Army people 00:12:02.901 --> 00:12:04.467 who knew about it thought it was crazy, 00:12:04.467 --> 00:12:05.701 but the scientists said, 00:12:05.701 --> 00:12:07.100 "No. It's fine. We know what we're doing," 00:12:07.100 --> 00:12:10.167 even though no one had ever tried anything like this before. 00:12:10.167 --> 00:12:11.300 But they tried it. 00:12:11.300 --> 00:12:12.701 They did know what they were doing. 00:12:12.701 --> 00:12:14.200 They got the chain reaction going, but they were able to 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:17.434 keep it very, very slow, so it was nothing like a bomb. 00:12:17.434 --> 00:12:20.067 It created enough power to light a light bulb, they said, 00:12:20.067 --> 00:12:21.934 but it proved that it could work, 00:12:21.934 --> 00:12:25.534 and it was time to move on to this kind of race 00:12:25.534 --> 00:12:28.300 to figure out how to make this into a bomb. 00:12:28.300 --> 00:12:29.334 And that's where this guy comes in. 00:12:29.334 --> 00:12:30.601 This is Robert Oppenheimer, 00:12:30.601 --> 00:12:32.968 who's really the main character in the book. 00:12:32.968 --> 00:12:35.300 I'd say there are many characters, 00:12:35.300 --> 00:12:36.868 but he's kind of at the heart of the story, 00:12:36.868 --> 00:12:40.801 and I feel like a book needs a main character, 00:12:40.801 --> 00:12:44.767 just like a novel or a movie or a TV show does, 00:12:44.767 --> 00:12:47.367 and I think he's the perfect main character for this story 00:12:47.367 --> 00:12:50.801 because he became the lead scientist in the American effort 00:12:50.801 --> 00:12:52.567 to build the bomb, 00:12:52.567 --> 00:12:54.868 and though it doesn't have to do with the race, 00:12:54.868 --> 00:12:58.868 I kind of stepped back in time just to introduce him. 00:12:58.868 --> 00:13:00.300 Here he is as a young kid. 00:13:00.300 --> 00:13:02.033 He's the old -- He's sitting with his brother. 00:13:02.033 --> 00:13:04.601 He's the older brother in this top picture. 00:13:04.601 --> 00:13:08.200 And he was a super nerdy kid. 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:10.734 I always thought, like, his childhood story 00:13:10.734 --> 00:13:14.033 is almost like a superhero origin story, 00:13:14.033 --> 00:13:16.300 like a, you know, Spiderman kind of story. 00:13:16.300 --> 00:13:17.901 He starts out as this nerdy kid. 00:13:17.901 --> 00:13:19.534 Kids are making fun of him, 00:13:19.534 --> 00:13:21.834 and then discovers he has this strange power. 00:13:21.834 --> 00:13:23.934 That's kind of how his life went. 00:13:23.934 --> 00:13:29.934 He was a super nerdy middle school kid in New York City. 00:13:29.934 --> 00:13:34.267 Other kids made fun of him mercilessly because he was -- 00:13:34.267 --> 00:13:36.367 Actually, he was quite annoying about his intelligence. 00:13:36.367 --> 00:13:39.567 He would go into school and brag about how smart he was. 00:13:39.567 --> 00:13:42.300 Other kids eventually had to write a petition, 00:13:42.300 --> 00:13:44.467 or they decided to do, 00:13:44.467 --> 00:13:47.467 write a petition asking him to shut up, basically, 00:13:47.467 --> 00:13:49.667 because he was just always answering everything 00:13:49.667 --> 00:13:52.834 and telling the teacher they were wrong all the time, 00:13:52.834 --> 00:13:55.300 and so he was not the most popular kid, 00:13:55.300 --> 00:13:58.033 to put it mildly, but he grew out of that. 00:13:58.033 --> 00:14:00.534 Here you see him in his, looks like his 20s. 00:14:00.534 --> 00:14:01.767 He's a super skinny guy. 00:14:01.767 --> 00:14:04.567 He's got this crazy, great head of hair, 00:14:04.567 --> 00:14:06.467 and he discovered what I think kind of 00:14:06.467 --> 00:14:08.501 is his power, his superpower, really, 00:14:08.501 --> 00:14:11.534 which is his ability to do math and science, 00:14:11.534 --> 00:14:13.067 and he became a physicist, 00:14:13.067 --> 00:14:16.834 and this really becomes, you could argue, a real power 00:14:16.834 --> 00:14:19.334 because he's the one at the heart of this effort 00:14:19.334 --> 00:14:22.734 to unleash the power within the atoms. 00:14:22.734 --> 00:14:24.067 But he's also just a strange guy, 00:14:24.067 --> 00:14:25.634 and I tell this story right at the beginning 00:14:25.634 --> 00:14:29.367 just because I just love to get to know characters, 00:14:29.367 --> 00:14:31.234 just like you would do for a novel, 00:14:31.234 --> 00:14:34.834 and this is an article about this early story. 00:14:34.834 --> 00:14:37.501 Okay, this would make a great scene, I think. 00:14:37.501 --> 00:14:40.968 He's a young professor at Berkeley, California, 00:14:40.968 --> 00:14:42.467 and he goes out on a date. 00:14:42.467 --> 00:14:44.367 So he's sitting -- This is the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. 00:14:44.367 --> 00:14:46.133 He's sitting with his date in a car 00:14:46.133 --> 00:14:48.601 overlooking the San Francisco Harbor. 00:14:48.601 --> 00:14:50.734 It's a really beautiful view, 00:14:50.734 --> 00:14:52.567 but he's not a normal sort of guy. 00:14:52.567 --> 00:14:54.601 He gets out, and he says, he asks his date, 00:14:54.601 --> 00:14:56.534 "Do you mind if I just get out and think about science 00:14:56.534 --> 00:14:57.868 for a little while?", 00:14:57.868 --> 00:15:00.701 and she thinks that's really strange, but, okay. 00:15:00.701 --> 00:15:03.267 So he gets out and wanders around, 00:15:03.267 --> 00:15:05.400 leaving her on the top of this mountain, 00:15:05.400 --> 00:15:06.801 and he wanders around so long 00:15:06.801 --> 00:15:09.601 that he finally realizes he's back at his apartment, 00:15:09.601 --> 00:15:12.033 and sees his apartment, and goes home and goes to bed, 00:15:12.033 --> 00:15:14.200 completely forgetting he's on a date. 00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:16.267 And meanwhile, the woman on the top of the hill 00:15:16.267 --> 00:15:17.601 flagged down a police officer, 00:15:17.601 --> 00:15:19.968 and they start looking for his body thinking he had, 00:15:19.968 --> 00:15:22.234 who knows, been murdered or disappeared, 00:15:22.234 --> 00:15:24.033 and it became a story in the newspaper, 00:15:24.033 --> 00:15:25.734 which is really embarrassing for him, 00:15:25.734 --> 00:15:27.467 but it also kind of introduces the character, 00:15:27.467 --> 00:15:29.033 that he's brilliant, 00:15:29.033 --> 00:15:30.834 but he also can be pretty forgetful, 00:15:30.834 --> 00:15:33.601 and a lot of his friends didn't think he was a good choice 00:15:33.601 --> 00:15:35.901 to run this top-secret lab. 00:15:35.901 --> 00:15:38.734 Here he is at his blackboard, constantly smoking up a storm 00:15:38.734 --> 00:15:41.567 while writing these crazy formulas on the blackboard. 00:15:41.567 --> 00:15:45.901 That's a really classic picture of Oppenheimer at work. 00:15:45.901 --> 00:15:47.200 But here he is with Leslie Groves, 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:50.267 who was the Army general who was really in charge 00:15:50.267 --> 00:15:52.734 of this top-secret project, 00:15:52.734 --> 00:15:54.934 and the two of them couldn't have been more different. 00:15:54.934 --> 00:15:58.901 Oppenheimer, this sophisticated guy 00:15:58.901 --> 00:16:02.334 who's really into science and classical music and poetry, 00:16:02.334 --> 00:16:06.234 and Groves was this loud, gruff, people said very obnoxious guy, 00:16:06.234 --> 00:16:09.434 but very, very efficient, good at getting things done, 00:16:09.434 --> 00:16:10.834 and they really got along well 00:16:10.834 --> 00:16:12.667 because they had this same goal in mind, 00:16:12.667 --> 00:16:15.400 which was to win this race to build the bomb. 00:16:15.400 --> 00:16:16.901 And the first thing they did was pick a spot, 00:16:16.901 --> 00:16:19.667 and here's Los Alamos in New Mexico, 00:16:19.667 --> 00:16:22.501 and they wanted somewhere that was in the middle of nowhere 00:16:22.501 --> 00:16:23.601 but that also had buildings, 00:16:23.601 --> 00:16:25.400 so they could get to work right away, 00:16:25.400 --> 00:16:26.934 and it actually had been a school, 00:16:26.934 --> 00:16:29.000 a place called the Los Alamos Boy's School, 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:30.501 a boarding school, 00:16:30.501 --> 00:16:32.667 and they were driving around in New Mexico 00:16:32.667 --> 00:16:34.567 and found this boarding school, 00:16:34.567 --> 00:16:36.767 and they saw the kids out playing, 00:16:36.767 --> 00:16:39.634 and they said, "This is perfect. We could just use the buildings. 00:16:39.634 --> 00:16:40.968 We'll just kick everybody out of here," 00:16:40.968 --> 00:16:42.567 and of course you think they'd told the students 00:16:42.567 --> 00:16:44.801 why they were being sent home? 00:16:44.801 --> 00:16:46.067 Not at all. 00:16:46.067 --> 00:16:47.667 Even the people who ran the school didn't know. 00:16:47.667 --> 00:16:49.734 The Army just took over. Scientists moved in. 00:16:49.734 --> 00:16:52.367 They made these checkpoints and gates 00:16:52.367 --> 00:16:55.067 and jumped in to start going to work. 00:16:57.267 --> 00:16:59.667 And I love this picture of this woman on the bottom here, 00:16:59.667 --> 00:17:01.167 is Dorothy McKibbin. 00:17:01.167 --> 00:17:04.367 She was -- They called her the gatekeeper of Los Alamos, 00:17:04.367 --> 00:17:07.033 and I like the picture because she looks all innocent, 00:17:07.033 --> 00:17:08.067 but they wanted that. 00:17:08.067 --> 00:17:09.367 They wanted to set up an operation 00:17:09.367 --> 00:17:12.167 that looked like nothing really important was going on, 00:17:12.167 --> 00:17:15.467 so they picked this street in Santa Fe 00:17:15.467 --> 00:17:17.334 and just took this little tiny office 00:17:17.334 --> 00:17:18.734 that didn't look very fancy at all, 00:17:18.734 --> 00:17:21.234 and she worked inside it, and if people showed up 00:17:21.234 --> 00:17:22.701 wondering what they were doing there, she said, 00:17:22.701 --> 00:17:23.968 "Oh, nothing important. 00:17:23.968 --> 00:17:25.734 We don't have any jobs or anything like that," 00:17:25.734 --> 00:17:28.801 but if you came and you knew 00:17:28.801 --> 00:17:30.901 because you had been recruited into this project, 00:17:30.901 --> 00:17:32.367 you had the right credentials, 00:17:32.367 --> 00:17:35.734 then she would give you your badge and tell you where to go, 00:17:35.734 --> 00:17:37.434 and you would go up to the hill, they called it. 00:17:37.434 --> 00:17:40.167 No one would ever say the secret lab in Los Alamos. 00:17:40.167 --> 00:17:41.968 They always called it the hill. 00:17:41.968 --> 00:17:43.834 And so here's Oppenheimer. He's got his hair cut. 00:17:43.834 --> 00:17:46.868 He's got his badge, and heading up to the hill 00:17:46.868 --> 00:17:49.033 to start work on this project. 00:17:49.033 --> 00:17:50.934 And of course, you could guess the reason they went 00:17:50.934 --> 00:17:54.367 to all these steps to be so secret 00:17:54.367 --> 00:17:56.067 and careful was to keep out spies, 00:17:56.067 --> 00:17:57.534 and that's the second part of the project. 00:17:57.534 --> 00:17:59.701 As the scientists are working, 00:17:59.701 --> 00:18:01.634 the spies are also getting started, 00:18:01.634 --> 00:18:04.133 and this map helps to explain it. 00:18:04.133 --> 00:18:05.300 This is kind of what the world, 00:18:05.300 --> 00:18:07.267 really what the world looked like 00:18:07.267 --> 00:18:09.267 as the U.S. really got into World War II, 00:18:09.267 --> 00:18:11.767 so I would say early 1942, 00:18:11.767 --> 00:18:15.100 and you see the U.S. and their allies in blue, 00:18:15.100 --> 00:18:17.901 and you see the Axis Powers, Germany, Japan, 00:18:17.901 --> 00:18:20.334 Italy in black, and the territory 00:18:20.334 --> 00:18:23.200 that they had taken over since the start of the war, 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:26.334 and then the red is the Soviet Union, the Russians. 00:18:26.334 --> 00:18:28.067 And they're kind of a special case 00:18:28.067 --> 00:18:29.400 because they started with -- 00:18:29.400 --> 00:18:31.901 Before the war, they made a secret pact with Hitler 00:18:31.901 --> 00:18:34.767 to not fight each other, 00:18:34.767 --> 00:18:37.067 and then Hitler invaded the Soviet Union 00:18:37.067 --> 00:18:38.567 and started, as you can see in this picture, 00:18:38.567 --> 00:18:41.434 taking over big chunks of Soviet territory, 00:18:41.434 --> 00:18:46.100 so now, the Soviets are fighting Hitler, 00:18:46.100 --> 00:18:47.968 and so they're sort of our allies. 00:18:47.968 --> 00:18:51.167 They were really our allies technically in World War II 00:18:51.167 --> 00:18:53.767 with Britain and the United States, 00:18:53.767 --> 00:18:55.267 but we really didn't trust each other, 00:18:55.267 --> 00:18:57.934 and we didn't expect to be allies after the war, 00:18:57.934 --> 00:18:59.267 and that's pretty important to the story 00:18:59.267 --> 00:19:01.534 because we decided, the Americans, 00:19:01.534 --> 00:19:03.701 that we were not going to share our secrets 00:19:03.701 --> 00:19:05.868 about making nuclear bombs with the Russians 00:19:05.868 --> 00:19:09.000 because we know that after the war, 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:10.300 we're going to be rivals again, 00:19:10.300 --> 00:19:12.234 and we don't want them to know how we did it, 00:19:12.234 --> 00:19:14.267 so they decided to steal it from us, 00:19:14.267 --> 00:19:17.067 and that's what this part of the story is about. 00:19:17.067 --> 00:19:19.234 This guy was a key to this effort, 00:19:19.234 --> 00:19:23.968 Klaus Fuchs, and on this side, on the right side of the screen, 00:19:23.968 --> 00:19:26.200 you can see his Los Alamos badge. 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:28.801 He was German, but he hated the Nazis. 00:19:28.801 --> 00:19:30.033 He hated Hitler. 00:19:30.033 --> 00:19:32.100 He was a Communist, really hardcore Communist, 00:19:32.100 --> 00:19:34.701 and so Nazis hated the Communists. 00:19:34.701 --> 00:19:36.234 They beat him up, even tried to kill him, 00:19:36.234 --> 00:19:38.901 threw him in a river, but he escaped from Germany. 00:19:38.901 --> 00:19:42.033 He came to the U.S. and was recruited into this project 00:19:42.033 --> 00:19:44.434 because he was such a brilliant physicist. 00:19:44.434 --> 00:19:46.634 Nobody worried too much about his politics, 00:19:46.634 --> 00:19:49.801 and so he became a scientist at Los Alamos 00:19:49.801 --> 00:19:51.434 and started doing really important work 00:19:51.434 --> 00:19:53.300 there helping to build the bomb, 00:19:53.300 --> 00:19:56.067 but as he later said, "I divided my brain in two. 00:19:56.067 --> 00:19:59.767 I was a great scientist helping the U.S. build a bomb, 00:19:59.767 --> 00:20:02.367 but I was also a devoted Communist, 00:20:02.367 --> 00:20:04.601 so I made secret copies of everything 00:20:04.601 --> 00:20:07.234 that we were figuring out there at the lab 00:20:07.234 --> 00:20:10.100 and figured out a way to give them to the Soviet Union, 00:20:10.100 --> 00:20:12.267 to the Russians during the war," 00:20:12.267 --> 00:20:15.334 and that was something that he was committed to, 00:20:15.334 --> 00:20:16.868 and nobody had any idea. 00:20:16.868 --> 00:20:20.067 People who later found out said, "He's the perfect spy." 00:20:20.067 --> 00:20:22.200 He was because nobody suspected him. 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:25.534 I mean, does he look like James Bond to you? 00:20:25.534 --> 00:20:26.834 Everyone thought he was -- 00:20:26.834 --> 00:20:28.767 And he really was a nice guy in his own way. 00:20:28.767 --> 00:20:31.033 He was very, very shy, very quiet. 00:20:31.033 --> 00:20:35.601 In fact, if the scientists wanted to drive down to Santa Fe 00:20:35.601 --> 00:20:36.934 to go out to dinner -- 00:20:36.934 --> 00:20:40.634 A lot of scientists brought families to Los Alamos. 00:20:40.634 --> 00:20:42.200 There was really nowhere to go out around there, 00:20:42.200 --> 00:20:46.601 so say you brought your kids to live with you in Los Alamos 00:20:46.601 --> 00:20:49.200 and you wanted to go out to dinner, you needed a babysitter. 00:20:49.200 --> 00:20:51.501 He was the babysitter of choice, 00:20:51.501 --> 00:20:54.701 everyone said, at Los Alamos because he was so friendly. 00:20:54.701 --> 00:20:57.000 He would come over and play with the kids and play -- 00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:59.400 He brought his violin and he would play music, 00:20:59.400 --> 00:21:01.534 and everyone loved him, and he was just -- 00:21:01.534 --> 00:21:02.834 He really was that guy, 00:21:02.834 --> 00:21:07.334 but he was also this hardcore spy at the same time. 00:21:07.334 --> 00:21:08.801 And this is his courier. 00:21:08.801 --> 00:21:11.033 Again, not a movie spy. 00:21:11.033 --> 00:21:14.868 He does not look like he belongs in a Hollywood spy movie, right? 00:21:14.868 --> 00:21:17.100 But this is Harry Gold, and he was a courier. 00:21:17.100 --> 00:21:20.267 If you ever want to be a spy, which I don't totally recommend, 00:21:20.267 --> 00:21:21.934 you might get this job of being a courier, 00:21:21.934 --> 00:21:24.834 especially in the day way before Internet or anything. 00:21:24.834 --> 00:21:27.634 Everything is delivered by hand, so he would get the job. 00:21:27.634 --> 00:21:30.400 Russian agents would contact him, 00:21:30.400 --> 00:21:32.567 and he would get the job of going out to New Mexico. 00:21:32.567 --> 00:21:35.167 He lived in Philadelphia with his parents, of all things. 00:21:35.167 --> 00:21:38.634 Can you imagine being a spy and living with your mom and dad? 00:21:38.634 --> 00:21:41.167 It kind of ruins the whole coolness factor, 00:21:41.167 --> 00:21:44.400 but he would get these jobs, which he hated doing, by the way 00:21:44.400 --> 00:21:46.400 because he was kind of in over his head at this point, 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:47.901 and the Russian agents would say, 00:21:47.901 --> 00:21:50.000 "You have to do this, or we'll kill you," 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.033 basically, so he would go out to New Mexico 00:21:54.033 --> 00:21:56.234 and pick up an envelope with bomb plans. 00:21:56.234 --> 00:21:57.400 He didn't know what was in it. 00:21:57.400 --> 00:21:59.400 He wasn't supposed to even look at it, 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:00.801 but they would send him out, 00:22:00.801 --> 00:22:04.133 so he'd pick up an envelope from Klaus Fuchs, 00:22:04.133 --> 00:22:07.133 bring it back and hand it to a Russian agent, 00:22:07.133 --> 00:22:08.567 and from there will take it. 00:22:08.567 --> 00:22:11.267 And from there, they were able to get the information 00:22:11.267 --> 00:22:13.501 from New York, where he came back to, 00:22:13.501 --> 00:22:16.133 across to Moscow, in the Soviet Union, 00:22:16.133 --> 00:22:17.834 and the Russians were able to start 00:22:17.834 --> 00:22:20.901 trying to build a bomb with that information. 00:22:20.901 --> 00:22:23.968 And Ted Hall, our original spy, the guy who gave me this idea, 00:22:23.968 --> 00:22:25.901 was doing the exact same thing. 00:22:25.901 --> 00:22:29.033 Hall didn't know that Fuchs was doing it, and vice-a-versa, 00:22:29.033 --> 00:22:30.501 but they were both doing the same thing. 00:22:30.501 --> 00:22:34.767 He was making secret plans, copies of the plans, 00:22:34.767 --> 00:22:39.968 and he also had a courier, and he would make the copies. 00:22:39.968 --> 00:22:43.200 And by the way, this is photocopy here 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:45.300 that says "Unclassified," 00:22:45.300 --> 00:22:47.934 these are the plans of how to make an atomic bomb. 00:22:47.934 --> 00:22:50.634 Now, does it seem like that shouldn't be public information, 00:22:50.634 --> 00:22:52.634 or maybe shouldn't be on the Internet? 00:22:52.634 --> 00:22:53.767 But it is. 00:22:53.767 --> 00:22:56.167 If you go later to, just to the web and type 00:22:56.167 --> 00:22:58.167 in Los Alamos primer, 00:22:58.167 --> 00:22:59.667 you'll get this PDF document 00:22:59.667 --> 00:23:01.834 that is the plans of making the atomic bomb, 00:23:01.834 --> 00:23:04.300 and this is what scientists showed. 00:23:04.300 --> 00:23:06.701 Say you showed up at Los Alamos in the middle of the project, 00:23:06.701 --> 00:23:08.501 scientists would show you this and say, "Read this. 00:23:08.501 --> 00:23:10.000 This is what we're working on," 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:11.667 and it all turned out to be correct, 00:23:11.667 --> 00:23:13.133 and it worked, as we know now. 00:23:13.133 --> 00:23:16.234 And the scientists will say, "Ah, it's such old information. 00:23:16.234 --> 00:23:17.767 It doesn't matter if it's out there, 00:23:17.767 --> 00:23:19.634 so, especially if you've taken 00:23:19.634 --> 00:23:21.901 some math and physics classes, you should read this 00:23:21.901 --> 00:23:25.501 and see if you can figure out what they're talking about. 00:23:25.501 --> 00:23:28.000 But Hall had a courier, too. Her name was Lona Cohen, 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:30.167 a really serious Communist from New York, 00:23:30.167 --> 00:23:34.367 and she would take the bus out, which took days, from New York, 00:23:34.367 --> 00:23:36.467 show up at the University of New Mexico 00:23:36.467 --> 00:23:39.400 where they had some prearranged spot. 00:23:39.400 --> 00:23:41.000 He would give her an, again, an envelope, 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:42.467 and then she had the very dangerous job 00:23:42.467 --> 00:23:44.033 of taking it back across the country. 00:23:44.033 --> 00:23:47.267 She was often searched and had to hide his envelope, 00:23:47.267 --> 00:23:49.734 which, if found and looked at, 00:23:49.734 --> 00:23:51.534 it certainly would have led to her execution. 00:23:51.534 --> 00:23:52.901 She knew that. 00:23:52.901 --> 00:23:55.100 She would have been killed if she were caught stealing 00:23:55.100 --> 00:23:57.701 and transporting these documents. 00:23:57.701 --> 00:24:00.200 And then the third part of this story, I call it the commandos. 00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:02.000 You have the scientist spies, 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:04.267 and then the commandos because all along, remember, 00:24:04.267 --> 00:24:06.000 the Germans are trying to build their bomb, 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.167 and so this part of this story is about all the secret efforts 00:24:11.167 --> 00:24:15.534 to disrupt and destroy their attempt, 00:24:15.534 --> 00:24:16.901 the German attempt to build the bomb, 00:24:16.901 --> 00:24:19.033 and a lot of it was done by secret agents and commandos 00:24:19.033 --> 00:24:21.834 behind enemy lines, and it was very much -- 00:24:21.834 --> 00:24:23.601 And I know it's way before your time, 00:24:23.601 --> 00:24:26.701 but do you know about the "Indiana Jones" movies? 00:24:26.701 --> 00:24:29.934 I loved those when they came out, 00:24:29.934 --> 00:24:34.000 and my kids liked them, too, so I think they hold up. 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:35.367 But they're -- You know that format 00:24:35.367 --> 00:24:38.000 where it's nonstop action, adventure, chase scenes. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.200 That's what this part of the story is all about. 00:24:40.200 --> 00:24:44.067 A lot of these guys were Norwegians. 00:24:44.067 --> 00:24:46.167 The Germans took over Norway just like they took over 00:24:46.167 --> 00:24:47.601 so much of Europe, 00:24:47.601 --> 00:24:50.133 and these young guys saw the Nazis take over their country. 00:24:50.133 --> 00:24:53.767 They were furious and determined to do anything to fight back, 00:24:53.767 --> 00:24:56.834 to take back their country and to fight back against Hitler, 00:24:56.834 --> 00:24:59.801 and so a small group of them agreed 00:24:59.801 --> 00:25:04.734 to be trained as commandos in Britain 00:25:04.734 --> 00:25:08.767 and then agreed to take on these incredibly dangerous missions 00:25:08.767 --> 00:25:11.634 where they would fly in a plane 00:25:11.634 --> 00:25:15.234 and be dropped behind enemy lines with a parachute 00:25:15.234 --> 00:25:18.667 and given these missions, and they were told flat-out, 00:25:18.667 --> 00:25:20.934 "There's very little chance you're ever going to get back," 00:25:20.934 --> 00:25:23.434 but they took these missions anyway, and I love this picture 00:25:23.434 --> 00:25:25.300 because it shows them on cross-country skis, 00:25:25.300 --> 00:25:28.467 which is essential to getting around in certain parts 00:25:28.467 --> 00:25:30.367 of Northern Europe in the winter, 00:25:30.367 --> 00:25:31.434 and these guys were perfect 00:25:31.434 --> 00:25:33.434 because they had all grown up in Norway, 00:25:33.434 --> 00:25:36.234 and they all grew up on cross-country skis. 00:25:36.234 --> 00:25:41.567 And so one of the missions that I highlight is this factory. 00:25:41.567 --> 00:25:45.033 They were dropped in, in the middle of the night with skis 00:25:45.033 --> 00:25:47.467 and a backpack full of bombs, 00:25:47.467 --> 00:25:50.334 and they were told to blow up a lab inside this factory 00:25:50.334 --> 00:25:53.634 that the Germans were using to make heavy water, 00:25:53.634 --> 00:25:56.534 which was something that they were using in their experiments 00:25:56.534 --> 00:25:59.534 and in their attempts to build an atomic bomb. 00:25:59.534 --> 00:26:02.267 And the commandos didn't really understand the science of it, 00:26:02.267 --> 00:26:03.501 but they didn't have to. 00:26:03.501 --> 00:26:05.667 They just were told, "Here's the location. 00:26:05.667 --> 00:26:07.000 It's very hard to get to. 00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:08.567 It's going to be even harder to get away from, 00:26:08.567 --> 00:26:11.634 but you need to get there, get into the basement, 00:26:11.634 --> 00:26:13.501 blow up the lab and then, 00:26:13.501 --> 00:26:15.868 if you can get away, that's a bonus." 00:26:15.868 --> 00:26:19.000 And that's what this part of the story is about, 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:20.200 and a lot of people tell me 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:21.501 this is the most exciting part of the story. 00:26:21.501 --> 00:26:24.200 I understand why, too, because I sort of agree. 00:26:24.200 --> 00:26:26.667 It's the kind of thing I never, ever learned about 00:26:26.667 --> 00:26:28.033 when I was studying World War II 00:26:28.033 --> 00:26:31.801 when I was in middle school or high school. 00:26:31.801 --> 00:26:34.868 They were also told to blow up this ferry boat, 00:26:34.868 --> 00:26:37.634 which was carrying materials that the Germans were using 00:26:37.634 --> 00:26:39.434 for their bomb research 00:26:39.434 --> 00:26:42.267 back to Germany, and this became a really -- 00:26:42.267 --> 00:26:45.267 This is a really interesting kind of moral dilemma 00:26:45.267 --> 00:26:46.501 because they knew -- 00:26:46.501 --> 00:26:49.634 The commandos knew that there would be civilians, 00:26:49.634 --> 00:26:52.534 Norwegian civilians onboard this boat, 00:26:52.534 --> 00:26:55.067 yet they were told to blow it up and sink it 00:26:55.067 --> 00:26:57.934 in the deepest part of the lake, so what do you do? 00:26:57.934 --> 00:27:00.801 And this was another one of the missions that they were given 00:27:00.801 --> 00:27:02.767 and that make up this third part of the story, 00:27:02.767 --> 00:27:05.868 and the other kind of part of this story, too, is ours 00:27:05.868 --> 00:27:09.067 and Allied attempts to get at German scientists 00:27:09.067 --> 00:27:11.000 because we were desperate to know what they were doing 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:15.934 and to stop them in any way, and the two parts -- 00:27:15.934 --> 00:27:19.133 The two guys on this slide are Morris "Moe" Berg. 00:27:19.133 --> 00:27:22.200 He really was a baseball player in the '20s and '30s. 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:23.968 As you can see, he was a catcher, 00:27:23.968 --> 00:27:26.133 but during World War II, he became a secret agent, 00:27:26.133 --> 00:27:28.033 and I love telling his story because, again, 00:27:28.033 --> 00:27:29.868 it's one of those scenes that sounds like 00:27:29.868 --> 00:27:33.167 it's straight out of a spy movie or something. 00:27:33.167 --> 00:27:34.567 He was given this, well -- 00:27:34.567 --> 00:27:37.868 The other picture here is Heisenberg, Werner Heisenberg, 00:27:37.868 --> 00:27:39.968 who was this great German physicist, 00:27:39.968 --> 00:27:42.100 and the Allies knew he was still in Germany, 00:27:42.100 --> 00:27:45.167 probably working on an atomic bomb for Adolf Hitler, 00:27:45.167 --> 00:27:46.467 so imagine getting this assignment. 00:27:46.467 --> 00:27:48.834 Imagine you're Moe Berg getting this assignment. 00:27:48.834 --> 00:27:53.067 They told him -- He was really good at languages, 00:27:53.067 --> 00:27:54.400 and he had become -- 00:27:54.400 --> 00:27:56.267 You know, he'd long since retired from baseball, 00:27:56.267 --> 00:27:58.767 and he'd become this secret agent, 00:27:58.767 --> 00:28:01.367 but he didn't expect to get a job like this. 00:28:01.367 --> 00:28:04.567 They told him, "We really want to get to Heisenberg, 00:28:04.567 --> 00:28:07.200 but when he's in Germany, we can't get at him, 00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:09.067 but we just found out he's going to be in Switzerland 00:28:09.067 --> 00:28:11.801 for just a couple of days going a talk. 00:28:11.801 --> 00:28:14.901 Switzerland is this neutral country right next to Germany. 00:28:14.901 --> 00:28:17.100 We're not supposed to be, you know, 00:28:17.100 --> 00:28:18.701 doing any sort of secret missions there, 00:28:18.701 --> 00:28:21.434 but let's worry about the fallout of this later. 00:28:21.434 --> 00:28:24.968 So what you need to do is go to Switzerland, 00:28:24.968 --> 00:28:27.133 just go to his lecture, pretend to be a student there. 00:28:27.133 --> 00:28:29.167 It's all going to be in German, and Moe Berg's German 00:28:29.167 --> 00:28:31.000 was really good, 00:28:31.000 --> 00:28:33.801 and if Heisenberg says anything at all that makes you think 00:28:33.801 --> 00:28:37.200 he's working on an atomic bomb, you shoot him. 00:28:37.200 --> 00:28:38.701 Shoot him right there in the lecture hall. 00:28:38.701 --> 00:28:40.067 Don't wait. Don't follow him out 00:28:40.067 --> 00:28:42.067 into the alley where you think it would be safer. 00:28:42.067 --> 00:28:44.634 You just have to do it right there." 00:28:44.634 --> 00:28:46.701 And I won't tell you how this part of the story works out, 00:28:46.701 --> 00:28:49.934 but again, it's one of these secret agent stories 00:28:49.934 --> 00:28:54.067 that is part of this third story line that are all -- 00:28:54.067 --> 00:28:59.067 These story lines are all going on at the same time. 00:28:59.067 --> 00:29:02.334 And it all comes together in 1945 00:29:02.334 --> 00:29:03.834 as they're ready to test the bomb. 00:29:03.834 --> 00:29:06.667 This is the platform they built in New Mexico 00:29:06.667 --> 00:29:07.934 in the desert to test the bomb. 00:29:07.934 --> 00:29:09.367 Obviously, they wanted it to be far away 00:29:09.367 --> 00:29:11.100 from any towns or cities 00:29:11.100 --> 00:29:13.100 because they didn't know how huge the explosion would be 00:29:13.100 --> 00:29:14.701 or even if it would work at all, 00:29:14.701 --> 00:29:17.601 and see this platform at the very top of the tower? 00:29:17.601 --> 00:29:19.767 That's just what it looks like on the inside. 00:29:19.767 --> 00:29:23.000 There's that little kind of house 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:24.567 almost at the top of the platform. 00:29:24.567 --> 00:29:26.267 This is the inside of that house, 00:29:26.267 --> 00:29:27.634 and this is what the bomb looks like. 00:29:27.634 --> 00:29:30.734 It looks like a monster from a science fiction movie, 00:29:30.734 --> 00:29:32.334 but it was just -- 00:29:32.334 --> 00:29:34.033 This was what they needed to test it. 00:29:34.033 --> 00:29:37.667 It was so complicated, they insisted that they needed 00:29:37.667 --> 00:29:39.334 to do a test to see if it would even work. 00:29:39.334 --> 00:29:41.767 And this poor guy was one of the scientists 00:29:41.767 --> 00:29:43.367 who was sitting beside it, 00:29:43.367 --> 00:29:45.567 and he was told to be the babysitter, 00:29:45.567 --> 00:29:48.167 basically to wait with it until about an hour 00:29:48.167 --> 00:29:49.868 before it was ready to be tested 00:29:49.868 --> 00:29:51.267 just to make sure nothing went wrong, 00:29:51.267 --> 00:29:55.734 and of course, he got out of there long before the explosion, 00:29:55.734 --> 00:29:57.167 and it worked. 00:29:57.167 --> 00:29:59.200 This is not a big surprise to you guys, I know, but it worked. 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:01.868 This is the first sort of millisecond of the explosion. 00:30:01.868 --> 00:30:04.567 It formed this crazy, almost like -- 00:30:04.567 --> 00:30:06.734 This scientist described it as almost a living, 00:30:06.734 --> 00:30:09.501 writhing bubble, 00:30:09.501 --> 00:30:12.868 a massive mass of heat and smoke, 00:30:12.868 --> 00:30:15.300 and then it turned into this mushroom cloud, 00:30:15.300 --> 00:30:16.767 which everyone kind of associates 00:30:16.767 --> 00:30:18.167 with atomic bombs now, 00:30:18.167 --> 00:30:20.667 but at the time, of course, nobody had ever seen one before. 00:30:20.667 --> 00:30:23.501 That's one of the things I find amazing about this story 00:30:23.501 --> 00:30:25.934 is remember that computers hadn't been existed yet. 00:30:25.934 --> 00:30:27.000 They hadn't been invented yet, 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:30.367 so they were doing all this on paper, 00:30:30.367 --> 00:30:32.701 figuring out all this stuff theoretically, 00:30:32.701 --> 00:30:35.167 and then, all of a sudden, it worked, and it worked. 00:30:35.167 --> 00:30:38.868 It produced something like 15,000 tons, 00:30:38.868 --> 00:30:42.834 the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT in this one bomb, 00:30:42.834 --> 00:30:45.968 and so they knew that they had invented something 00:30:45.968 --> 00:30:49.534 that would change the world, and I know this is not -- 00:30:49.534 --> 00:30:51.968 This is what the tower looked like the next day. 00:30:51.968 --> 00:30:55.167 Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves come back to take a look at it, 00:30:55.167 --> 00:30:58.634 and it had turned the desert into glass, the heat of it, 00:30:58.634 --> 00:31:00.868 and apparently they're not too worried about the radiation 00:31:00.868 --> 00:31:03.667 because they walked right up to what's left of the tower 00:31:03.667 --> 00:31:05.300 to check it out. 00:31:05.300 --> 00:31:06.968 You can see how skinny Oppenheimer is. 00:31:06.968 --> 00:31:08.934 He was under so much stress during these years 00:31:08.934 --> 00:31:10.100 that he barely ate. 00:31:10.100 --> 00:31:12.434 They said he lived on coffee and cigarettes 00:31:12.434 --> 00:31:14.934 if that's humanly possible, 00:31:14.934 --> 00:31:17.667 and then, very soon after that, it was used in Japan. 00:31:17.667 --> 00:31:21.000 This is what's left of the city of Hiroshima after one bomb, 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:23.701 just one bomb, was dropped on the city, 00:31:23.701 --> 00:31:30.934 and then the second bomb few days later ended World War II. 00:31:30.934 --> 00:31:34.000 And so that is, in a nutshell, the basics of the story, 00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:35.767 but of course there are a lot of other things going on, 00:31:35.767 --> 00:31:38.601 and I get into more of the science and how things work, 00:31:38.601 --> 00:31:40.434 which I think we're going to have some demonstrations 00:31:40.434 --> 00:31:41.734 of after this. 00:31:41.734 --> 00:31:43.033 -That's exactly right. 00:31:43.033 --> 00:31:44.167 -I'm also going to stick around for us to do some Q&A. 00:31:44.167 --> 00:31:45.934 -Well, every time I hear that story 00:31:45.934 --> 00:31:48.167 of course reading the book and then hearing you retell it, 00:31:48.167 --> 00:31:49.968 I mean, my reaction is like, 00:31:49.968 --> 00:31:53.067 "This is so crazy. Like, this history can't all be real," 00:31:53.067 --> 00:31:55.133 and the fact that it is, is just so fascinating, 00:31:55.133 --> 00:31:59.100 so thank you for retelling it for all of us. 00:31:59.100 --> 00:32:01.067 Steve, we'll let you kind of relax, 00:32:01.067 --> 00:32:04.834 take a back seat here for a bit, and as you're exactly right, 00:32:04.834 --> 00:32:06.334 we're going to be giving some demos, 00:32:06.334 --> 00:32:09.767 but, you know, don't go too far because we got some questions, 00:32:09.767 --> 00:32:11.200 so feel free. 00:32:11.200 --> 00:32:13.534 I can actually switch off your webcam here. 00:32:13.534 --> 00:32:14.667 -Good. 00:32:14.667 --> 00:32:15.834 -And you can actually mute your microphone, 00:32:15.834 --> 00:32:18.534 and then you can hang out here for a bit, 00:32:18.534 --> 00:32:20.000 and I might bug you here at the end 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:22.334 because we've got some good questions already coming in. 00:32:22.334 --> 00:32:24.767 So, as you guys know, my name is Chrissy Gregg, 00:32:24.767 --> 00:32:26.801 and this is Rob Wallace. 00:32:26.801 --> 00:32:28.167 -Hello. -I do our distance-learning 00:32:28.167 --> 00:32:30.467 programs here, and Rob does our STEM programs here. 00:32:30.467 --> 00:32:32.200 -Yep. -And he's created 00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:34.300 some really cool demonstrations for you guys 00:32:34.300 --> 00:32:38.634 based on some of these concepts from the book as we mentioned, 00:32:38.634 --> 00:32:42.434 and so we have three poll questions, 00:32:42.434 --> 00:32:44.667 three passages from the book, 00:32:44.667 --> 00:32:47.501 and we have three demonstrations for you, 00:32:47.501 --> 00:32:49.868 so that's how we're going to do it here today. 00:32:49.868 --> 00:32:55.434 And then, when we're done, we are actually going to then 00:32:55.434 --> 00:32:56.901 take your awesome questions, 00:32:56.901 --> 00:32:58.934 which are coming through in that Q&A area. 00:32:58.934 --> 00:33:00.801 If you want to keep asking questions, as I said, 00:33:00.801 --> 00:33:02.767 just type right below us there. 00:33:02.767 --> 00:33:05.567 So all right. 00:33:05.567 --> 00:33:07.434 So I thought today we'd start off 00:33:07.434 --> 00:33:09.234 our conversation here with a poll question, 00:33:09.234 --> 00:33:10.868 and if are paying close attention, 00:33:10.868 --> 00:33:13.634 I think that you'll know the answers to some of these. 00:33:13.634 --> 00:33:16.067 So the first question for you all is, 00:33:16.067 --> 00:33:18.067 what are the different parts of an atom? 00:33:18.067 --> 00:33:21.634 Are they A, molecules and particles, B, protons, 00:33:21.634 --> 00:33:24.434 neutrons, electrons, and a nucleus, 00:33:24.434 --> 00:33:29.434 C, cells, radicals, and ions, or D, hydrogen and oxygen? 00:33:29.434 --> 00:33:32.167 We're going to give you a second to vote here, 00:33:32.167 --> 00:33:35.467 and then we're going to reveal the answer. 00:33:35.467 --> 00:33:36.734 All right. Seems like -- 00:33:36.734 --> 00:33:39.067 I was curious if we have science groups or history groups 00:33:39.067 --> 00:33:40.734 or maybe a little bit of both watching with us today. 00:33:40.734 --> 00:33:41.834 All right. 00:33:41.834 --> 00:33:43.300 I'm going to broadcast the results, 00:33:43.300 --> 00:33:45.467 and you guys can see how you did. 00:33:45.467 --> 00:33:49.467 It looks like about 90% got it correct, yes, protons, 00:33:49.467 --> 00:33:51.534 neutrons, electrons, and the nucleus, 00:33:51.534 --> 00:33:53.334 and so actually we heard 00:33:53.334 --> 00:33:55.334 Steve talk about some of these concepts, 00:33:55.334 --> 00:33:57.467 and the one concept that we're really going to draw out, 00:33:57.467 --> 00:33:59.400 at least in this first question here, 00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:01.634 is that idea of a wobbly droplet, 00:34:01.634 --> 00:34:03.167 which you already heard him talk about. 00:34:03.167 --> 00:34:05.200 -Mm-hmm. -And so, if you have the book 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.033 in front of you, the hardcover version here, 00:34:09.033 --> 00:34:12.601 if you turn to page 14, you're going to see this quote. 00:34:12.601 --> 00:34:17.434 So this, they talked over an idea proposed by the great 00:34:17.434 --> 00:34:19.801 Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. 00:34:19.801 --> 00:34:22.367 Bohr had recently suggested that the nucleus of an atom 00:34:22.367 --> 00:34:25.100 might act like a wobbly droplet of liquid. 00:34:25.100 --> 00:34:27.601 If that were true, they asked each other, what would happen 00:34:27.601 --> 00:34:31.734 if a speeding neutron hit that nucleus of a uranium atom? 00:34:31.734 --> 00:34:34.734 Could the force of the collision cause the uranium nucleus 00:34:34.734 --> 00:34:40.033 to stretch and stretch just like a liquid drop until it is split? 00:34:40.033 --> 00:34:41.400 So there you can see 00:34:41.400 --> 00:34:42.801 what they're kind of illustrating right there 00:34:42.801 --> 00:34:44.467 and what Steve showed us earlier. 00:34:44.467 --> 00:34:46.467 Should we show them your demonstration first, 00:34:46.467 --> 00:34:48.934 or do you want to add to that initially? 00:34:48.934 --> 00:34:50.033 -Let's talk about it. -Yeah. 00:34:50.033 --> 00:34:51.234 -And then let's show the video. 00:34:51.234 --> 00:34:54.400 So the atom, 00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:57.567 the idea, the model of an atom, was relatively new, 00:34:57.567 --> 00:34:59.400 and nobody could ever see it. 00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:04.067 Today even, we can't see those atoms, but Bohr had that idea 00:35:04.067 --> 00:35:07.667 that it was this wobbly droplet, 00:35:07.667 --> 00:35:12.100 and so, if we look at -- And these are all in your -- 00:35:12.100 --> 00:35:15.000 How to do all these activities are in the teacher's guide, 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:18.601 so this pill bottle has one bean in it. 00:35:18.601 --> 00:35:21.601 We're going to use kidney beans, 00:35:21.601 --> 00:35:23.767 which are very important here in New Orleans. 00:35:23.767 --> 00:35:26.634 -Yes, red beans and rice... -Yep. Kidney beans... 00:35:26.634 --> 00:35:28.667 -...every Monday. -...as protons 00:35:28.667 --> 00:35:31.033 and garbanzo beans, 00:35:31.033 --> 00:35:32.868 which are very good for hummus-making... 00:35:32.868 --> 00:35:36.067 -Mm-hmm. -...as neutrons. 00:35:36.067 --> 00:35:37.400 Okay? 00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:39.767 And so we're just going to model the nucleus of an atom. 00:35:39.767 --> 00:35:44.267 It's made of protons and neutrons, 00:35:44.267 --> 00:35:45.868 and so a hydrogen atom, 00:35:45.868 --> 00:35:48.834 its nucleus just has one red bean in it. 00:35:48.834 --> 00:35:49.868 Can you see? 00:35:49.868 --> 00:35:52.734 There's just one red bean in there. 00:35:52.734 --> 00:35:56.300 And if we get bigger in the periodic table, 00:35:56.300 --> 00:36:00.534 you follow the periodic table along, and you get -- 00:36:00.534 --> 00:36:05.200 This is oxygen. 00:36:05.200 --> 00:36:08.734 Okay? So oxygen has a few more, right? 00:36:08.734 --> 00:36:13.133 So we have the red beans, the protons, and the neutrons. 00:36:13.133 --> 00:36:14.434 Now, think about this. 00:36:14.434 --> 00:36:17.901 We've got these positively charged particles 00:36:17.901 --> 00:36:21.601 and these neutrally charged particles in the nucleus, 00:36:21.601 --> 00:36:23.300 and we're shoving them together. 00:36:23.300 --> 00:36:25.067 Now is it very easy to shove a bunch 00:36:25.067 --> 00:36:27.868 of positively charged things next to each other? 00:36:27.868 --> 00:36:30.334 -I don't think they're going to like that, right? 00:36:30.334 --> 00:36:31.734 -They're not going to like that. 00:36:31.734 --> 00:36:34.501 It's going to take some force to hold them together, 00:36:34.501 --> 00:36:36.834 and the neutrons kind of help out 00:36:36.834 --> 00:36:38.501 because they spread out 00:36:38.501 --> 00:36:41.267 that charge a little bit so that it's harder. 00:36:41.267 --> 00:36:46.968 Now, as you get bigger and bigger and bigger an atom, 00:36:46.968 --> 00:36:48.334 the nucleus gets much bigger, 00:36:48.334 --> 00:36:50.033 so here we have to have a bigger jar 00:36:50.033 --> 00:36:51.801 because this is uranium. 00:36:51.801 --> 00:36:52.968 Okay? 00:36:52.968 --> 00:36:54.234 -Which is what they ended up splitting. 00:36:54.234 --> 00:36:55.567 -Yep. 00:36:55.567 --> 00:36:56.901 This is what they ended splitting in Germany. 00:36:56.901 --> 00:36:58.534 They split uranium, 00:36:58.534 --> 00:37:00.701 and you can see there's some red beans in there, 00:37:00.701 --> 00:37:08.000 and they're kind of separated out by those neutrons in there. 00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:10.701 Now, but imagine it is a drop. 00:37:10.701 --> 00:37:14.667 If you think of these as representing a droplet, 00:37:14.667 --> 00:37:16.334 just one little droplet, 00:37:16.334 --> 00:37:17.534 it's not going to be very easy 00:37:17.534 --> 00:37:20.100 to split one little droplet, right? 00:37:20.100 --> 00:37:24.200 But if you take a big drop like this, 00:37:24.200 --> 00:37:26.033 it's going to be easier for it to split. 00:37:26.033 --> 00:37:27.467 -Much easier. 00:37:27.467 --> 00:37:31.501 -And there's going to be more desire for it to split, 00:37:31.501 --> 00:37:34.367 more tendency for it to split because all those, 00:37:34.367 --> 00:37:37.968 you know, 90-something protons 00:37:37.968 --> 00:37:40.667 are shoved together, and they don't like that, 00:37:40.667 --> 00:37:45.467 but all the negative charges are out in the electrons, 00:37:45.467 --> 00:37:46.567 so they're not going to like that, 00:37:46.567 --> 00:37:51.300 so you throw one garbanzo bean at that, 00:37:51.300 --> 00:37:52.701 and it's going to split. 00:37:52.701 --> 00:37:53.801 -Split it all up. -Okay? 00:37:53.801 --> 00:37:56.400 -Right. -And you can get even bigger. 00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:57.868 It's not the biggest. 00:37:57.868 --> 00:38:02.133 So that's why it tends to be those big atoms that split, 00:38:02.133 --> 00:38:05.334 not the little ones like carbon and oxygen. 00:38:05.334 --> 00:38:08.567 They can split sometimes, but it's not that easy. 00:38:08.567 --> 00:38:12.067 It's the big ones like plutonium and uranium 00:38:12.067 --> 00:38:14.234 and radium that split like that. 00:38:14.234 --> 00:38:16.667 They have the big nucleus. 00:38:16.667 --> 00:38:20.100 -And plutonium and uranium ended up being the fuel 00:38:20.100 --> 00:38:23.567 for both atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. 00:38:23.567 --> 00:38:24.901 One was plutonium. 00:38:24.901 --> 00:38:27.100 One was uranium, and then of course it was plutonium 00:38:27.100 --> 00:38:28.501 for the first Trinity test, right? 00:38:28.501 --> 00:38:29.634 -Yep, for the first test. -So... 00:38:29.634 --> 00:38:31.567 -Yep. -Well, do you want to show them 00:38:31.567 --> 00:38:33.367 our demo that we made a couple years ago? 00:38:33.367 --> 00:38:34.634 -Yeah. Let's do that. 00:38:34.634 --> 00:38:37.300 -So we actually made these a couple years ago, 00:38:37.300 --> 00:38:38.400 so you can maybe see we look 00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:40.000 a little different these days but... 00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:43.934 -I've lost some weight. -And actually, Rob here has, 00:38:43.934 --> 00:38:46.801 as you can see we're about to show, of course, a balloon, 00:38:46.801 --> 00:38:49.000 and you're going to see me coming with scissors, 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:52.968 and this is going to be the wobbly droplet model. 00:38:52.968 --> 00:38:54.434 To make sure this plays okay on your end, 00:38:54.434 --> 00:38:56.734 we're going to pause video and audio here, 00:38:56.734 --> 00:39:01.200 so you're going to see us freeze frame, but then we'll be back. 00:39:01.200 --> 00:39:05.100 -So, Robin, I'm here to explain Niels Bohr's droplet model 00:39:05.100 --> 00:39:07.067 of a nucleus and fission, 00:39:07.067 --> 00:39:12.000 so a nucleus is like a big liquid drop, he said, 00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:15.000 and when the nucleus gets big and unstable, 00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:18.501 it can split, and so energy can come in, 00:39:18.501 --> 00:39:21.601 and it can force the two sides apart, 00:39:21.601 --> 00:39:25.467 and then something can come in like a neutron, 00:39:25.467 --> 00:39:27.868 and they can split the two sides, 00:39:29.934 --> 00:39:33.467 and they have a lot of energy when they split. 00:39:33.467 --> 00:39:38.000 Let's see it again in slow motion. 00:39:48.067 --> 00:39:49.167 -All right. 00:39:49.167 --> 00:39:51.234 So obviously we have to do a little slow-mo 00:39:51.234 --> 00:39:52.567 when these things go so quickly. 00:39:52.567 --> 00:39:54.300 We're going to see it again here, 00:39:54.300 --> 00:39:55.634 but you can see that concept 00:39:55.634 --> 00:39:58.334 of then it's pulling apart, and then it splits. 00:39:58.334 --> 00:40:00.968 -Yep. That's a lot of energy. 00:40:00.968 --> 00:40:02.501 -Yeah, and it was a lot of energy, 00:40:02.501 --> 00:40:04.567 and you see obviously, when it's a balloon, those two sides go. 00:40:04.567 --> 00:40:06.267 We had to film that one, like, a few times 00:40:06.267 --> 00:40:08.167 because the two sides go flying 00:40:08.167 --> 00:40:10.267 so quickly, it's so hard to capture, 00:40:10.267 --> 00:40:12.234 but that's exactly what's going on 00:40:12.234 --> 00:40:14.400 when we talk about this concept. 00:40:14.400 --> 00:40:18.334 All right, we're going to move on to concept number two, 00:40:18.334 --> 00:40:19.467 and to do that, as I said, 00:40:19.467 --> 00:40:20.968 we're going to ask you a poll question. 00:40:20.968 --> 00:40:22.868 Then we're going to show you a different part of the book. 00:40:22.868 --> 00:40:26.300 So this is one you actually have to type in something, 00:40:26.300 --> 00:40:27.868 and we want to ask -- 00:40:27.868 --> 00:40:32.234 And if you were paying attention to Steve's beginning talk here, 00:40:32.234 --> 00:40:33.534 you may know the answer to this. 00:40:33.534 --> 00:40:36.767 What is the difference between fission and fusion? 00:40:36.767 --> 00:40:37.801 -Mm. -And so you're not going 00:40:37.801 --> 00:40:38.901 to choose anything here. 00:40:38.901 --> 00:40:39.934 You're actually going to try to tell us 00:40:39.934 --> 00:40:41.734 what you think the difference is. 00:40:41.734 --> 00:40:44.834 This one may take a little longer here, 00:40:44.834 --> 00:40:50.367 so we'll give you guys a second to -- 00:40:50.367 --> 00:40:51.567 Ooh, okay. 00:40:51.567 --> 00:40:53.868 Obviously, yes, they look similar, 00:40:53.868 --> 00:40:55.400 but they're spelled different. 00:40:55.400 --> 00:40:58.767 That is a difference, of course, but we're going to talk about, 00:40:58.767 --> 00:41:00.534 you know, what's going on. 00:41:00.534 --> 00:41:03.701 Why are they different from one another other than in spelling? 00:41:07.033 --> 00:41:10.200 Ooh, wow, we've got some really technical answers here, 00:41:10.200 --> 00:41:11.300 which I really like. 00:41:11.300 --> 00:41:13.801 -Mm-hmm. -But most of you are coming up 00:41:13.801 --> 00:41:15.067 with the same results. 00:41:15.067 --> 00:41:16.834 Fission -- And you can see this now. 00:41:16.834 --> 00:41:18.200 You can scroll through here. 00:41:18.200 --> 00:41:23.334 Fission is splitting, and fusion is bringing together, 00:41:23.334 --> 00:41:24.334 coming together, right? 00:41:24.334 --> 00:41:25.767 Exactly right. 00:41:25.767 --> 00:41:28.834 So what we're going to do is look at a certain chapter 00:41:28.834 --> 00:41:30.834 of a book that describes just that, 00:41:30.834 --> 00:41:34.934 so again, turn to page 71 if you have this in front of you, 00:41:34.934 --> 00:41:37.400 and this is the specific section, says, 00:41:37.400 --> 00:41:40.901 "Theoretically, as the uranium nucleus splits in two, 00:41:40.901 --> 00:41:45.067 more neutrons would break free and fly off on their own. 00:41:45.067 --> 00:41:47.067 These speeding neutrons would collide 00:41:47.067 --> 00:41:51.133 with other uranium atoms, causing them to fission also. 00:41:51.133 --> 00:41:52.968 As these uranium atoms split, 00:41:52.968 --> 00:41:54.667 they would release more neutrons, 00:41:54.667 --> 00:41:56.901 which would hit more uranium atoms. 00:41:56.901 --> 00:41:59.567 These atoms would also split, releasing more neutrons, 00:41:59.567 --> 00:42:01.100 which would hit more uranium atoms, 00:42:01.100 --> 00:42:04.067 causing more fission, more free-flying neutrons, 00:42:04.067 --> 00:42:06.367 more fission, more neutrons, and so on. 00:42:06.367 --> 00:42:09.467 Though they didn't know if it would actually happen, 00:42:09.467 --> 00:42:12.467 physicists had a name ready for this process, 00:42:12.467 --> 00:42:15.033 a chain reaction," and we talk about that a lot, 00:42:15.033 --> 00:42:17.167 a sustained nuclear chain reaction, 00:42:17.167 --> 00:42:21.033 and that's obviously key to what would become the atomic bomb. 00:42:21.033 --> 00:42:22.834 -Right, and that was really important, 00:42:22.834 --> 00:42:24.834 and it was one of the big innovations, 00:42:24.834 --> 00:42:27.734 and it's kind of interesting because a nuclear power plant 00:42:27.734 --> 00:42:31.734 runs on a sustained chain reaction, 00:42:31.734 --> 00:42:36.734 and nuclear power plants are not very different between today 00:42:36.734 --> 00:42:38.567 and the ones they built back then. 00:42:38.567 --> 00:42:43.367 So fusion is how we get all the different atoms 00:42:43.367 --> 00:42:45.934 that we have today, all the different elements. 00:42:45.934 --> 00:42:50.567 That's what our sun does is our sun is taking hydrogen 00:42:50.567 --> 00:42:52.667 and fusing it together into helium, 00:42:52.667 --> 00:42:57.100 and supernovas, big explosions of the suns, 00:42:57.100 --> 00:43:01.634 they create the larger elements by fusing, 00:43:01.634 --> 00:43:02.834 squeezing them together, 00:43:02.834 --> 00:43:05.100 and that does release a lot of energy. 00:43:05.100 --> 00:43:07.033 People on Earth would -- 00:43:07.033 --> 00:43:09.133 Many engineers would love to be able to figure out 00:43:09.133 --> 00:43:11.634 how to make fusion happen, but it creates -- 00:43:11.634 --> 00:43:14.868 It requires so much to hold it together 00:43:14.868 --> 00:43:17.934 that they haven't figured out how to contain that reaction. 00:43:17.934 --> 00:43:19.100 -Right. 00:43:19.100 --> 00:43:20.834 So we thought we would actually have a -- 00:43:20.834 --> 00:43:23.667 So we've got one more video demo for you here, 00:43:23.667 --> 00:43:27.367 and this is of me attempting to stack some dominoes 00:43:27.367 --> 00:43:30.367 and showing you the difference between a regular reaction 00:43:30.367 --> 00:43:33.434 and a sustained nuclear chain reaction, 00:43:33.434 --> 00:43:35.400 and so this will hopefully be a good demonstration 00:43:35.400 --> 00:43:36.667 of what the difference may be. 00:43:36.667 --> 00:43:38.601 So again, what you're going to see here 00:43:38.601 --> 00:43:41.501 is me from a couple years ago, 00:43:41.501 --> 00:43:46.934 but we're going to pause here on live and -- 00:43:46.934 --> 00:43:49.400 Hey, everyone, Chrissy here, and what we're doing today 00:43:49.400 --> 00:43:50.868 is we're going to show you 00:43:50.868 --> 00:43:54.434 what a sustained nuclear chain reaction looks like. 00:43:54.434 --> 00:43:57.634 Now we can't use a microscope or anything like that to show you, 00:43:57.634 --> 00:43:59.234 so we need to blow it up a little bit, 00:43:59.234 --> 00:44:02.133 and so what we're going to do to represent atoms 00:44:02.133 --> 00:44:04.467 is actually using dominoes, 00:44:04.467 --> 00:44:10.234 so we are going to see how one nucleus of one atom splits, 00:44:10.234 --> 00:44:14.133 how it starts off a reaction, so let's test it out. 00:44:14.133 --> 00:44:16.167 You guys ready? Okay. 00:44:16.167 --> 00:44:18.734 So, in this first row of dominoes here, 00:44:18.734 --> 00:44:21.901 this would be like a sustained nuclear chain reaction, 00:44:21.901 --> 00:44:25.868 but what is happening here is only with one atom splitting, 00:44:25.868 --> 00:44:29.133 causing another one to split, something like this. 00:44:31.701 --> 00:44:34.968 But another type of sustained nuclear chain reaction, 00:44:34.968 --> 00:44:36.634 what we're trying to do instead, 00:44:36.634 --> 00:44:38.200 especially when creating a weapon, 00:44:38.200 --> 00:44:42.033 is we want that reaction to grow exponentially, 00:44:42.033 --> 00:44:45.033 so in this case, instead of one atom hitting another atom 00:44:45.033 --> 00:44:48.067 when it splits over and over and over again, 00:44:48.067 --> 00:44:52.534 we want one atom when it splits to hit two or more atoms, 00:44:52.534 --> 00:44:54.400 kind of something like this domino setup, 00:44:54.400 --> 00:44:58.033 and imagine this going on and on and on and on and on. 00:44:58.033 --> 00:45:01.267 Okay. Let's do it. 00:45:01.267 --> 00:45:02.501 Okay. 00:45:02.501 --> 00:45:05.968 Let's slow it down, see that slow motion. 00:45:17.734 --> 00:45:25.534 [ Dominoes clatter loudly ] 00:45:25.534 --> 00:45:27.000 All right, they sound like bowling pins 00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:28.334 when they move that slow. 00:45:28.334 --> 00:45:31.434 -Really slow. -But anyway, think of it -- 00:45:31.434 --> 00:45:35.667 You know, I had, what, 20 or 25 dominoes there on my desk, 00:45:35.667 --> 00:45:37.300 but this is something that's happening 00:45:37.300 --> 00:45:39.200 with billions and billions of atoms, 00:45:39.200 --> 00:45:41.200 and the thing to remember is that, 00:45:41.200 --> 00:45:42.801 you know, everything is made of atoms. 00:45:42.801 --> 00:45:45.200 We're made of atoms, the chairs we're sitting in, 00:45:45.200 --> 00:45:46.901 my computer, you know, I mean, everything, 00:45:46.901 --> 00:45:49.567 and so this is something that's happening many, 00:45:49.567 --> 00:45:52.434 many times over, not just with 25 atoms in this case. 00:45:52.434 --> 00:45:56.801 -And these concepts have become part of our social knowledge 00:45:56.801 --> 00:45:58.100 and our way of talking, 00:45:58.100 --> 00:46:00.601 so we talk all the time about a chain reaction. 00:46:00.601 --> 00:46:02.033 They cause a chain reaction. 00:46:02.033 --> 00:46:05.701 We also talk about another term, which is called critical mass, 00:46:05.701 --> 00:46:07.400 right, and the critical mass 00:46:07.400 --> 00:46:11.033 is the amount of the radioactive substance 00:46:11.033 --> 00:46:13.300 that it takes to sustain a reaction. 00:46:13.300 --> 00:46:16.167 If you don't have enough, then it's going to peter out. 00:46:16.167 --> 00:46:20.334 The neutrons won't have enough stuff to run into 00:46:20.334 --> 00:46:21.667 to keep the reaction going. 00:46:21.667 --> 00:46:24.534 A critical mass, we use it in different terms today, 00:46:24.534 --> 00:46:27.234 just enough to get it going, right? 00:46:27.234 --> 00:46:28.300 -Mm-hmm. -And that's kind of 00:46:28.300 --> 00:46:30.701 what it means in a nuclear reaction. 00:46:30.701 --> 00:46:33.300 -All right, now on to our final concept, 00:46:33.300 --> 00:46:35.234 which means one more poll question. 00:46:35.234 --> 00:46:37.901 This may be the trickiest one, I feel like, 00:46:37.901 --> 00:46:41.067 so our question for you is, what is an isotope? 00:46:41.067 --> 00:46:43.400 Is it A, the total number of protons and neutrons 00:46:43.400 --> 00:46:45.934 in a nucleus, the process, or B, 00:46:45.934 --> 00:46:50.734 the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy, 00:46:50.734 --> 00:46:54.234 C, a variant of an element with different number of protons, 00:46:54.234 --> 00:46:57.300 or D, the transmission of energy 00:46:57.300 --> 00:46:59.534 in the form of ways or particles? 00:46:59.534 --> 00:47:01.067 Ooh. All right. 00:47:01.067 --> 00:47:04.801 As I thought, this one might be the trickiest of the bunch, 00:47:04.801 --> 00:47:06.934 but we'll give you maybe a second more. 00:47:06.934 --> 00:47:08.567 -Actually, there's a mistake in there. 00:47:08.567 --> 00:47:09.701 -Oh. 00:47:09.701 --> 00:47:11.601 -So it should say, "Different number." 00:47:11.601 --> 00:47:13.901 -Oh, a different number of neutrons. 00:47:13.901 --> 00:47:15.133 Well, you guys maybe are -- 00:47:15.133 --> 00:47:17.701 -So this is a trick question. -Yeah. Okay. 00:47:17.701 --> 00:47:19.534 So we're going to reveal the answer, so it is a variant 00:47:19.534 --> 00:47:21.767 of a element, but look. 00:47:21.767 --> 00:47:24.400 Chrissy had a typo, and it's a different number 00:47:24.400 --> 00:47:26.300 of not protons, but neutrons. 00:47:26.300 --> 00:47:27.534 -Yeah. 00:47:27.534 --> 00:47:28.601 -But you all knew what we were talking about. 00:47:28.601 --> 00:47:29.667 You all uncovered the real mystery. 00:47:29.667 --> 00:47:31.701 -Yeah. You had the right idea. -So... 00:47:31.701 --> 00:47:33.033 -So, as you go across the periodic table, 00:47:33.033 --> 00:47:35.133 there's that big thing we call the atomic number. 00:47:35.133 --> 00:47:38.634 That atomic number is how many protons 00:47:38.634 --> 00:47:39.934 that an element has in it, 00:47:39.934 --> 00:47:43.467 and if you change the number of protons, 00:47:43.467 --> 00:47:44.667 then you change the element. 00:47:44.667 --> 00:47:46.000 It's become a different element, 00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:48.000 but if you change the number of neutrons, 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.033 then it's become an isotope. 00:47:50.033 --> 00:47:55.033 For example here, this is just plain old -- 00:47:55.033 --> 00:47:58.033 I think you can see this is just plain old hydrogen, 00:47:58.033 --> 00:48:01.567 has one particle in the nucleus, 00:48:01.567 --> 00:48:05.367 just one proton, 00:48:05.367 --> 00:48:09.167 and this is heavy hydrogen. 00:48:09.167 --> 00:48:13.067 It has a proton and a neutron, and this ties into the story. 00:48:13.067 --> 00:48:15.801 When they were making heavy water, heavy water 00:48:15.801 --> 00:48:17.801 is made from heavy hydrogen, 00:48:17.801 --> 00:48:21.767 and so it's water that has hydrogen 00:48:21.767 --> 00:48:24.734 that has a neutron in the nucleus, 00:48:24.734 --> 00:48:28.701 and so that's an isotope, and it's really hard to tell. 00:48:28.701 --> 00:48:31.634 I mean, if you were to put these on a scale, 00:48:31.634 --> 00:48:34.501 you could weigh them out, and most of the time, 00:48:34.501 --> 00:48:36.567 you could tell them apart, but they would -- 00:48:36.567 --> 00:48:37.901 -Right. -Right. 00:48:37.901 --> 00:48:41.868 But imagine that if you've got a uranium nucleus. 00:48:41.868 --> 00:48:43.067 Okay? 00:48:43.067 --> 00:48:45.601 So there were different isotopes of uranium, 00:48:45.601 --> 00:48:47.767 and there's one of them in particular 00:48:47.767 --> 00:48:49.968 that we want to make a bomb, 00:48:49.968 --> 00:48:56.133 and that's 235, and 235 is about 1%. 00:48:56.133 --> 00:48:57.434 Okay? 00:48:57.434 --> 00:48:58.834 It's a very small percent of all the uranium. 00:48:58.834 --> 00:49:00.200 The rest of it won't work, 00:49:00.200 --> 00:49:04.100 and the different between U-235 and 238 00:49:04.100 --> 00:49:06.701 is if I put -- 00:49:06.701 --> 00:49:12.734 I've got 235 in here, and I add three neutrons in there. 00:49:12.734 --> 00:49:15.300 Now can you really tell the difference? 00:49:15.300 --> 00:49:16.367 So one of the tricks -- 00:49:16.367 --> 00:49:17.367 -No, not with your own naked eye. 00:49:17.367 --> 00:49:18.701 That's for sure. 00:49:18.701 --> 00:49:22.467 -One of the big, big challenges in the Manhattan Project 00:49:22.467 --> 00:49:29.434 was separating 238 from 235 to get enough 235 to make a bomb, 00:49:29.434 --> 00:49:34.033 and in the end, they only made enough U-235 00:49:34.033 --> 00:49:36.501 to make one bomb -- one bomb. 00:49:36.501 --> 00:49:39.667 -Yes. -And that was the one, 00:49:39.667 --> 00:49:42.200 the first bomb that we dropped. 00:49:42.200 --> 00:49:45.400 What they discovered accidentally was that, 00:49:45.400 --> 00:49:48.667 if you put 238, which is most -- 00:49:48.667 --> 00:49:50.434 Like, if you just put a big sample of uranium, 00:49:50.434 --> 00:49:52.133 it's mostly U-238. 00:49:52.133 --> 00:49:54.100 If you put it in a reactor 00:49:54.100 --> 00:49:58.868 and have lots of neutrons going on in there, 00:49:58.868 --> 00:50:02.767 it turns into plutonium, and this is plutonium, 00:50:02.767 --> 00:50:05.434 and really you can't really tell the difference 00:50:05.434 --> 00:50:07.567 because they're pretty close to each other. 00:50:07.567 --> 00:50:11.767 So it would turn into plutonium, and plutonium, also, 00:50:11.767 --> 00:50:13.701 it's even more fissionable. 00:50:13.701 --> 00:50:16.601 It gets to critical mass even more easily, 00:50:16.601 --> 00:50:17.901 and so what they ended up doing, 00:50:17.901 --> 00:50:21.701 that's what the plant in Washington State did, 00:50:21.701 --> 00:50:24.501 Hanford, they made a reactor, 00:50:24.501 --> 00:50:28.567 and they turned U-238 into plutonium, 00:50:28.567 --> 00:50:31.234 and then they gathered all that plutonium up 00:50:31.234 --> 00:50:33.968 and were able to make two plutonium -- 00:50:33.968 --> 00:50:35.100 I keep using the wrong hand. 00:50:35.100 --> 00:50:37.901 Two plutonium bombs. -Yeah. 00:50:37.901 --> 00:50:42.734 -And one of them was tested and -- 00:50:42.734 --> 00:50:44.167 -That's Trinity. 00:50:44.167 --> 00:50:48.467 -And one of them was dropped, the last bomb that we used. 00:50:48.467 --> 00:50:52.734 And so plutonium is mostly what people use for bombs today 00:50:52.734 --> 00:50:55.000 because it's easier to make and generate. 00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:56.133 -Mm-hmm. 00:50:56.133 --> 00:50:57.567 -And that's actually what you -- 00:50:57.567 --> 00:51:01.901 So this specific concept of the book, page 123, 00:51:01.901 --> 00:51:03.300 talks about uranium, 00:51:03.300 --> 00:51:06.200 but it talks about the key of these isotopes, 00:51:06.200 --> 00:51:07.567 why they're so important to the story. 00:51:07.567 --> 00:51:09.667 It says, "Fryman explained the basics -- 00:51:09.667 --> 00:51:12.000 how uranium atoms split when hit with neutrons." 00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:13.567 We talked about that, chain reaction, 00:51:13.567 --> 00:51:15.567 "How they give off energy, how a chain reaction 00:51:15.567 --> 00:51:17.133 could lead to an explosion. 00:51:17.133 --> 00:51:19.567 It wouldn't just work with any uranium, though. 00:51:19.567 --> 00:51:21.300 The nucleus of a uranium atom 00:51:21.300 --> 00:51:25.000 usually had a total of 238 protons and neutrons. 00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:26.934 It's called U-238. 00:51:26.934 --> 00:51:30.267 Once hit with speeding neutrons, U-238 does not fission. 00:51:30.267 --> 00:51:32.434 It's useless to bomb makers, 00:51:32.434 --> 00:51:34.534 but a small percentage of uranium atoms, 00:51:34.534 --> 00:51:37.234 about 1 in every 130 or so, 00:51:37.234 --> 00:51:40.467 have a total of 235 protons and neutrons. 00:51:40.467 --> 00:51:41.868 This is U-235. 00:51:41.868 --> 00:51:43.767 When U-235 is hit by neutrons, 00:51:43.767 --> 00:51:45.801 it does split and release energy," 00:51:45.801 --> 00:51:48.167 so those isotopes are going to be critical 00:51:48.167 --> 00:51:49.801 to creating the explosion. 00:51:49.801 --> 00:51:51.801 -And I want to give a shout-out to Steve. 00:51:51.801 --> 00:51:55.767 He did a fantastic job of describing the science in here. 00:51:55.767 --> 00:51:58.434 I had book marked these pages long ago, 00:51:58.434 --> 00:52:02.501 and I use them when we're developing the Manhattan Project 00:52:02.501 --> 00:52:06.133 part of the museum, which you can come and see. 00:52:06.133 --> 00:52:09.267 I want to preemptively answer a question somebody 00:52:09.267 --> 00:52:10.801 asked about heavy water. 00:52:10.801 --> 00:52:12.734 -Oh, yeah, we got one earlier about heavy water. 00:52:12.734 --> 00:52:17.367 -And so the heavy water is a way cool part of the story. 00:52:17.367 --> 00:52:19.300 Heisenberg was in charge. 00:52:19.300 --> 00:52:20.334 Even though we didn't know it, 00:52:20.334 --> 00:52:22.667 he was in charge of the German effort. 00:52:22.667 --> 00:52:25.133 They were thinking they would finish the war 00:52:25.133 --> 00:52:26.868 out pretty quickly and that this was -- 00:52:26.868 --> 00:52:29.167 They thought this was going to take 10 years. 00:52:29.167 --> 00:52:30.868 And even though they had built up a lot of stuff 00:52:30.868 --> 00:52:33.868 to go into war, they didn't have a lot of resources 00:52:33.868 --> 00:52:37.334 in terms of energy and stuff in the war, 00:52:37.334 --> 00:52:39.200 and so they'd back-burnered. 00:52:39.200 --> 00:52:43.133 They put on low priority their atomic-bomb effort, 00:52:43.133 --> 00:52:47.100 but they had also decided to try to get uranium 00:52:47.100 --> 00:52:51.167 by putting it in a reactor with heavy water, 00:52:51.167 --> 00:52:53.868 and it turns out that that's not that great a way to do it. 00:52:53.868 --> 00:52:55.067 -That wasn't the best way to do it. 00:52:55.067 --> 00:52:57.634 -Plus their heavy water wasn't that heavy. 00:52:57.634 --> 00:53:01.501 But if you come in June, the museum will have 00:53:01.501 --> 00:53:04.100 its new Manhattan Project gallery open, 00:53:04.100 --> 00:53:08.701 and it will have a big rusty-looking metal barrel, 00:53:08.701 --> 00:53:10.767 and that metal barrel was actually -- 00:53:10.767 --> 00:53:14.067 The Norwegian government got it out of the bottom of that lake, 00:53:14.067 --> 00:53:16.300 and they sent it to us so we could put it here in the museum. 00:53:16.300 --> 00:53:17.300 -Wow. 00:53:17.300 --> 00:53:19.133 -So they did find those barrels, 00:53:19.133 --> 00:53:21.734 and they did get rusty, and they were watertight, 00:53:21.734 --> 00:53:24.734 and they tested the water, and it wasn't that heavy. 00:53:24.734 --> 00:53:26.300 -It wasn't that heavy water. 00:53:26.300 --> 00:53:28.834 But -- And also, I want to mention before we really, 00:53:28.834 --> 00:53:30.367 truly open up to Q and A, 00:53:30.367 --> 00:53:35.033 if you want to make up your own atoms using red beans, using... 00:53:35.033 --> 00:53:36.667 -Isotopes. -...chickpeas, 00:53:36.667 --> 00:53:39.534 and you can do this as well, so we've actually outlined -- 00:53:39.534 --> 00:53:42.501 In the teacher guide that I sent all of your teachers, 00:53:42.501 --> 00:53:46.100 you should have the basics of how to create your own atom, 00:53:46.100 --> 00:53:47.167 and if you didn't get it, 00:53:47.167 --> 00:53:48.767 I actually will have it at the end here. 00:53:48.767 --> 00:53:50.934 Steve, do you want to switch your camera 00:53:50.934 --> 00:53:52.100 and microphone back on? 00:53:52.100 --> 00:53:54.367 And we can... -Cut my microphone back on. 00:53:54.367 --> 00:53:57.701 -...see what questions we have here. 00:53:57.701 --> 00:54:00.534 All right. I can hear you. 00:54:00.534 --> 00:54:01.667 And now... -Now we can see you. 00:54:01.667 --> 00:54:03.400 -Yes. Now we can see you. 00:54:03.400 --> 00:54:04.901 Okay. I want to start off with -- 00:54:04.901 --> 00:54:07.767 Actually, there's a couple 00:54:07.767 --> 00:54:09.167 really interesting questions so -- 00:54:09.167 --> 00:54:10.467 And I don't know if we necessarily know the 00:54:10.467 --> 00:54:12.200 answer to this, but I just -- 00:54:12.200 --> 00:54:14.567 Someone asked, "How many hours would a scientist usually work, 00:54:14.567 --> 00:54:16.267 and, like, how intense was the work 00:54:16.267 --> 00:54:18.968 at any of these sites that you say?" 00:54:18.968 --> 00:54:20.767 -There was stuff going on all over the country, 00:54:20.767 --> 00:54:22.934 but they worked all the time. 00:54:22.934 --> 00:54:25.934 Oppenheimer tried to insist that they take a day off a week 00:54:25.934 --> 00:54:27.634 just so they didn't burn out, 00:54:27.634 --> 00:54:30.067 but they talked about working 16, 18 hours a day, 00:54:30.067 --> 00:54:32.501 and he certainly did, 00:54:32.501 --> 00:54:36.367 and you can see it even in his body as the war goes on. 00:54:36.367 --> 00:54:40.400 He's shedding weight, but they were under so much pressure. 00:54:40.400 --> 00:54:43.701 They really felt that it's not such a stretch 00:54:43.701 --> 00:54:47.334 that the future of the world depended on them, 00:54:47.334 --> 00:54:50.200 that if they lost this race, they would lose the world, 00:54:50.200 --> 00:54:54.534 but that's really not an exaggeration. 00:54:54.534 --> 00:54:58.801 -Yeah, if you think about it, it was -- 00:54:58.801 --> 00:55:00.667 Yeah, if you think about it, it was 1938 00:55:00.667 --> 00:55:03.234 that they discovered fission 00:55:03.234 --> 00:55:06.400 and were using it to make this bomb just a few years later, 00:55:06.400 --> 00:55:08.400 and for those of you who are young, 00:55:08.400 --> 00:55:09.601 it's hard to imagine this, 00:55:09.601 --> 00:55:11.767 but information moved more slowly back then. 00:55:11.767 --> 00:55:13.534 It wasn't like somebody discovered something, 00:55:13.534 --> 00:55:15.100 and it was on Twitter, right? 00:55:15.100 --> 00:55:16.234 It took time. 00:55:16.234 --> 00:55:19.167 I mean, the way the news got to the United States 00:55:19.167 --> 00:55:22.133 about it was that Niels Bohr got on a boat 00:55:22.133 --> 00:55:25.100 and, a month later, was here, right? 00:55:25.100 --> 00:55:27.367 And so it took a while. 00:55:27.367 --> 00:55:30.634 They didn't even discover plutonium until 1940, 00:55:30.634 --> 00:55:32.267 and we were using it to make a bomb, 00:55:32.267 --> 00:55:37.133 you know, from a new element, so that was pretty crazy. 00:55:37.133 --> 00:55:38.901 -Oh, here's some good ones. 00:55:38.901 --> 00:55:41.300 So from Ardi Parker's class, 00:55:41.300 --> 00:55:43.300 "Is there still radioactivity, 00:55:43.300 --> 00:55:46.067 at least a trace amount at the Los Alamos site?" 00:55:46.067 --> 00:55:48.534 -You can come out there once in a while. 00:55:48.534 --> 00:55:50.267 They'll open it up. 00:55:50.267 --> 00:55:52.100 -Sorry. Alamogordo, yeah, and the test site, yeah. 00:55:52.100 --> 00:55:53.300 -But I think it is. 00:55:53.300 --> 00:55:55.400 If you bring your Geiger counter out there, 00:55:55.400 --> 00:55:56.567 you'll still get a reaction. 00:55:56.567 --> 00:55:58.300 It's not considered dangerous anymore, 00:55:58.300 --> 00:56:00.601 but, yeah, it's still there. 00:56:00.601 --> 00:56:05.267 -Yeah. 00:56:05.267 --> 00:56:09.634 They open it once every 3 years, and there are people from -- 00:56:09.634 --> 00:56:16.334 They eventually moved testing out to Nevada and out 00:56:16.334 --> 00:56:20.734 in Bikini Islands in the Pacific, and we actually -- 00:56:20.734 --> 00:56:23.434 You know, when you'll hear sometimes oceanographers 00:56:23.434 --> 00:56:25.200 talking about ocean currents moving 00:56:25.200 --> 00:56:26.734 and how long it takes and such, 00:56:26.734 --> 00:56:29.901 the way they actually know is that they have markers. 00:56:29.901 --> 00:56:32.801 Like, they know when there's a spike of radiation. 00:56:32.801 --> 00:56:35.367 They know it was from this particular test 00:56:35.367 --> 00:56:36.701 or that particular test 00:56:36.701 --> 00:56:39.834 or, as you point out in the bomb, 00:56:39.834 --> 00:56:44.868 we knew when the Russians had tested their bomb 00:56:44.868 --> 00:56:47.300 because we felt the radiation in the air. 00:56:47.300 --> 00:56:50.400 So, yeah, the half-life of uranium 00:56:50.400 --> 00:56:53.567 is about the age of our solar system, 00:56:53.567 --> 00:56:56.100 so if you had a pile of uranium 00:56:56.100 --> 00:57:01.067 and you put it there on the day that the Earth was born, 00:57:01.067 --> 00:57:03.801 it would only be half as bad today 00:57:03.801 --> 00:57:06.400 as it was on the day the Earth was born. 00:57:06.400 --> 00:57:10.501 -That's kind of unbelievable, you know, wrap your head around. 00:57:10.501 --> 00:57:11.667 Okay. I've got a couple question. 00:57:11.667 --> 00:57:13.968 You guys have kind of already touched on this, 00:57:13.968 --> 00:57:15.300 but I think people want to know, like, 00:57:15.300 --> 00:57:17.467 how, I mean, like, how quickly was this really done? 00:57:17.467 --> 00:57:20.100 You talked about about uranium was invented, or discovered, 00:57:20.100 --> 00:57:22.467 and then we, you know, all of a sudden, are making these bombs. 00:57:22.467 --> 00:57:24.367 Like, what is the timeline 00:57:24.367 --> 00:57:26.501 between, you know, with all this stuff? 00:57:26.501 --> 00:57:28.234 Like, how -- I was quick. -It was really fast. 00:57:28.234 --> 00:57:29.501 It was, like, '41, 00:57:29.501 --> 00:57:32.200 they were thinking about the feasibility of it. 00:57:32.200 --> 00:57:35.601 '42, they started building the places, and, you know, 00:57:35.601 --> 00:57:40.901 about 2 1/2 years later, they had this bomb. 00:57:40.901 --> 00:57:43.467 -And then, yeah, by 1945 then, 00:57:43.467 --> 00:57:45.033 the tests and then above the two. 00:57:45.033 --> 00:57:46.434 So the tests in July, 00:57:46.434 --> 00:57:49.501 and of course both atomic bombs were dropped in August. 00:57:49.501 --> 00:57:50.934 All right, I don't know if either of you 00:57:50.934 --> 00:57:52.367 know the answer to this. -Yeah. 00:57:52.367 --> 00:57:54.167 -Is the stadium or squash court still there in Chicago? 00:57:54.167 --> 00:57:56.400 -Yes. -Think that's kind of -- 00:57:56.400 --> 00:57:57.534 -And you can visit. 00:57:57.534 --> 00:58:00.334 It's at the University of Chicago. 00:58:00.334 --> 00:58:04.701 -[ Laughs ] 00:58:06.267 --> 00:58:07.501 -Yeah, and actually, 00:58:07.501 --> 00:58:09.400 they were supposed to be building a facility 00:58:09.400 --> 00:58:13.133 for Fermi to test his ideas at, 00:58:13.133 --> 00:58:16.334 and that became Argonne National Lab, 00:58:16.334 --> 00:58:18.000 and they weren't moving very fast, 00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:19.968 and that's when he moved onto the squash court, 00:58:19.968 --> 00:58:23.467 and it was after the test was successful, they said, 00:58:23.467 --> 00:58:26.934 "Uh-oh. We better 00:58:26.934 --> 00:58:29.601 get a move on with this place for him to do his research 00:58:29.601 --> 00:58:32.100 because in Downtown Chicago is not a good place." 00:58:32.100 --> 00:58:33.601 -Right. Yeah. 00:58:33.601 --> 00:58:35.834 Realizing the issues there. 00:58:35.834 --> 00:58:38.033 And then do you -- 00:58:38.033 --> 00:58:39.767 I guess the effects of the radiation, 00:58:39.767 --> 00:58:41.701 were any of those scientists direct -- 00:58:41.701 --> 00:58:43.000 -Yeah. -I mean, you saw obviously 00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:45.467 that image of here Leslie Groves, 00:58:45.467 --> 00:58:50.167 and we see Oppenheimer here the next day at the site. 00:58:50.167 --> 00:58:52.100 Did they understand the kind of radiation 00:58:52.100 --> 00:58:55.567 that would've been emitted from this, you know, weapon? 00:58:55.567 --> 00:58:57.200 -No. -Yeah. 00:58:57.200 --> 00:58:59.400 -They -- Although those scientists saw -- 00:58:59.400 --> 00:59:01.300 Most of them lived pretty -- 00:59:01.300 --> 00:59:04.267 You know, ones who weren't spies lived pretty long 00:59:04.267 --> 00:59:06.834 and happy lives. 00:59:06.834 --> 00:59:09.501 Now there was an accident shortly after this. 00:59:09.501 --> 00:59:12.868 They call it the demon core. 00:59:12.868 --> 00:59:17.000 There was a third plutonium core that they were testing, 00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:19.267 and there were two different accidents with it, 00:59:19.267 --> 00:59:22.467 and some guys got killed by the radiation 00:59:22.467 --> 00:59:25.467 for that in a really ugly way. 00:59:25.467 --> 00:59:28.334 -All right, and since we're about at 1:00 Central Time here, 00:59:28.334 --> 00:59:31.534 think my last question I'm going to have is for Steve. 00:59:31.534 --> 00:59:32.968 Do you want to -- A lot of students are wondering 00:59:32.968 --> 00:59:35.701 about the process of writing this book, 00:59:35.701 --> 00:59:37.667 so, like, how long did that take you? 00:59:37.667 --> 00:59:40.234 So when you just had this initial concept 00:59:40.234 --> 00:59:41.934 to then actually publishing, like, what -- 00:59:41.934 --> 00:59:43.234 I know you talked about doing research, but could you -- 00:59:43.234 --> 00:59:47.133 -The whole process was probably about two years. 00:59:47.133 --> 00:59:52.734 If you include the idea, the research, lots of notes, 00:59:52.734 --> 00:59:54.200 that's kind of, like, the first half, 00:59:54.200 --> 00:59:56.968 and then the second half is the writing and revision, 00:59:56.968 --> 00:59:59.501 and so each of those takes close to a year, 00:59:59.501 --> 01:00:02.033 which I know sounds like a long time to be working on one thing, 01:00:02.033 --> 01:00:05.300 but the different steps in the process 01:00:05.300 --> 01:00:09.300 and kind of the third quarter is the writing the first draft, 01:00:09.300 --> 01:00:11.000 and then the fourth quarter is the revising. 01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:14.901 And you can see behind me part of a kind of bulletin board. 01:00:14.901 --> 01:00:18.267 My whole office is surrounded by these great blank walls 01:00:18.267 --> 01:00:21.000 that I put up notes on, and that's my way of outlining. 01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:22.901 It's really a movie, a screen-writing 01:00:22.901 --> 01:00:24.234 and movie making technique 01:00:24.234 --> 01:00:27.267 to write down ideas for scenes, put them on index cards. 01:00:27.267 --> 01:00:29.734 I have thousands of index cards. -Yeah. 01:00:29.734 --> 01:00:32.100 -I'm using different colors for the different story lines, 01:00:32.100 --> 01:00:34.167 so for "Bomb", I would have one for the scientist, 01:00:34.167 --> 01:00:37.267 one for spies, one for that secret agent, 01:00:37.267 --> 01:00:39.734 and then spread them out by taping them on the wall 01:00:39.734 --> 01:00:44.100 until it sort of starts to form a story, an outline, 01:00:44.100 --> 01:00:47.534 and that is kind of the middle of the process. 01:00:47.534 --> 01:00:50.400 I've done the research, but I haven't done the writing yet. 01:00:50.400 --> 01:00:53.467 I find that to be the most interesting part of the process, 01:00:53.467 --> 01:00:55.734 and then it's really hard to actually write it, 01:00:55.734 --> 01:00:58.734 so getting started on the actual first draft, 01:00:58.734 --> 01:01:00.801 I know everyone I talk to says the same thing. 01:01:00.801 --> 01:01:01.868 My kids feel the same way. 01:01:01.868 --> 01:01:05.300 That's the hardest part. 01:01:09.634 --> 01:01:11.434 -Someone was actually asking what was behind you. 01:01:11.434 --> 01:01:13.834 They wanted to know what your setup is. 01:01:13.834 --> 01:01:15.400 -Yeah. -So I'm glad you explained 01:01:15.400 --> 01:01:17.834 your bulletin board kind of mapping out. 01:01:17.834 --> 01:01:19.667 -If any of you stay a long time in school, 01:01:19.667 --> 01:01:22.634 what he just said applies to dissertations, as well. 01:01:22.634 --> 01:01:25.033 -Yeah, so that will be a few years from -- 01:01:25.033 --> 01:01:26.267 -Take your notes reading papers. 01:01:26.267 --> 01:01:28.167 That's the best part. 01:01:28.167 --> 01:01:30.133 -Well, I'm sorry to say 01:01:30.133 --> 01:01:31.767 that I guess I haven't timed it all correctly. 01:01:31.767 --> 01:01:34.334 We're now at 1:01 Central Time, so actually, 01:01:34.334 --> 01:01:36.267 I might transition into the last area of the room 01:01:36.267 --> 01:01:38.534 and share some resources, but so this is the last time 01:01:38.534 --> 01:01:40.434 you'll actually see us, everybody, 01:01:40.434 --> 01:01:42.834 so thank you so much.. 01:01:42.834 --> 01:01:44.200 -Yes. Thanks, Steve. 01:01:44.200 --> 01:01:46.434 -...and thank you, Steve, for joining us here today 01:01:46.434 --> 01:01:47.634 and really sharing this story. 01:01:47.634 --> 01:01:49.634 It's so, so great, and for those of you 01:01:49.634 --> 01:01:51.400 who haven't gotten a copy of Steve's book, 01:01:51.400 --> 01:01:54.000 please do, and, of course, all of your other books, as well. 01:01:54.000 --> 01:01:55.734 So I'm going to transition to the last part of the room, 01:01:55.734 --> 01:01:58.000 and we're going to go away, here, for a second, 01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:01.567 but you're going to see some resources pop up, and first off, 01:02:01.567 --> 01:02:04.934 as this slideshow loads, you can purchase "Bomb" today. 01:02:04.934 --> 01:02:06.634 So if you click on that hyperlink where it says, 01:02:06.634 --> 01:02:09.801 "Purchase," that's where you can actually, you know, 01:02:09.801 --> 01:02:11.567 buy the book, and in addition, 01:02:11.567 --> 01:02:13.968 you saw some of Steve's books at the beginning of the program. 01:02:13.968 --> 01:02:15.167 Here is a few more. 01:02:15.167 --> 01:02:17.767 Like I said, they've all won so many awards. 01:02:17.767 --> 01:02:19.834 They're really compelling books 01:02:19.834 --> 01:02:21.567 all about all different parts of history, 01:02:21.567 --> 01:02:23.601 and if you're just a World War II fan, 01:02:23.601 --> 01:02:25.801 he's got another one, "Port Chicago 50," 01:02:25.801 --> 01:02:29.000 which is a big munitions explosion out in California, 01:02:29.000 --> 01:02:30.701 a really compelling story. 01:02:30.701 --> 01:02:33.067 So please check out Steve's books. 01:02:33.067 --> 01:02:35.334 Also, we want to share some museum resources with you, 01:02:35.334 --> 01:02:38.133 so two kind of science-related resources. 01:02:38.133 --> 01:02:40.467 For teachers -- Well, actually, why don't you take this, Rob? 01:02:40.467 --> 01:02:43.801 -Yeah, so we have curriculum that focuses mostly, 01:02:43.801 --> 01:02:47.567 for now, on middle school, 01:02:47.567 --> 01:02:49.734 and it's called Real World Science, 01:02:49.734 --> 01:02:53.767 and that's available on that website right there, 01:02:53.767 --> 01:02:57.501 ww2realworldscience.org. 01:02:57.501 --> 01:03:00.534 We also have a summer teacher institute 01:03:00.534 --> 01:03:03.634 for fifth through eighth-grade teachers. 01:03:03.634 --> 01:03:05.801 We just selected the summer's cohort now, 01:03:05.801 --> 01:03:09.968 but next January, you can apply, teachers. 01:03:09.968 --> 01:03:14.100 We also have a website called WWII Science and Technology, 01:03:14.100 --> 01:03:16.701 and it's getting a little old, 01:03:16.701 --> 01:03:20.167 but it has lesson plans and stuff on there 01:03:20.167 --> 01:03:22.934 for older students, as well. -Yeah. 01:03:22.934 --> 01:03:24.234 It's got a good darkroom with -- 01:03:24.234 --> 01:03:27.400 -You can also ask questions about science 01:03:27.400 --> 01:03:30.634 and World War II at ask the expert 01:03:30.634 --> 01:03:33.767 at the nationalww2museum.org 01:03:33.767 --> 01:03:35.501 -And you can see some of the videos that we filmed 01:03:35.501 --> 01:03:37.501 to respond to those questions 01:03:37.501 --> 01:03:40.767 actually on that site, as well, so those are pretty fun. 01:03:40.767 --> 01:03:43.601 And then, lastly, so I know we've got science teachers. 01:03:43.601 --> 01:03:45.567 I know we've got history teachers and maybe everybody 01:03:45.567 --> 01:03:47.334 in between watching with us. 01:03:47.334 --> 01:03:49.868 Check out our World War II curriculum. 01:03:49.868 --> 01:03:53.033 This is more focused on social studies standards here, 01:03:53.033 --> 01:03:55.734 but it's at ww2classroom.org, 01:03:55.734 --> 01:03:56.901 and you can see a screen shot there, 01:03:56.901 --> 01:03:58.868 and of course the hyperlink there. 01:03:58.868 --> 01:04:00.334 History teachers, the lesson plan 01:04:00.334 --> 01:04:01.734 that I featured in the teacher guide 01:04:01.734 --> 01:04:03.601 is from this site. 01:04:03.601 --> 01:04:06.267 Right now we have all of our lesson plans 01:04:06.267 --> 01:04:08.033 about the Pacific up here. 01:04:08.033 --> 01:04:10.767 Soon you'll have more lesson plans about Europe, 01:04:10.767 --> 01:04:12.467 and so there will be a lot to see and explore here 01:04:12.467 --> 01:04:15.067 with a lot of artifacts, oral histories, 01:04:15.067 --> 01:04:16.934 videos from museum galleries, things like that, 01:04:16.934 --> 01:04:18.434 to really tell the story. 01:04:18.434 --> 01:04:22.200 Lastly, and we keep referencing this teacher guide. 01:04:22.200 --> 01:04:25.367 If you didn't get it from me, you can see in that files box 01:04:25.367 --> 01:04:26.801 underneath the image, 01:04:26.801 --> 01:04:28.934 there, that's where you can download the teacher guide 01:04:28.934 --> 01:04:32.000 with lesson plans from real world science 01:04:32.000 --> 01:04:34.133 and, of course, the activities we talked about today 01:04:34.133 --> 01:04:37.767 and a lesson plan from ww2classroom. 01:04:37.767 --> 01:04:40.334 And, actually, I think that I'm out of announcements, 01:04:40.334 --> 01:04:41.534 here, so -- 01:04:41.534 --> 01:04:43.033 -Yep. -Thank you, Steve, again. 01:04:43.033 --> 01:04:45.234 We really appreciate your time with us today, 01:04:45.234 --> 01:04:46.968 and thanks to everybody virtually out there 01:04:46.968 --> 01:04:48.267 in the audience. 01:04:48.267 --> 01:04:52.634 You asked some really fantastic questions, and...