The RaLa Experiment: Key to the Atomic Bomb
161,285
Published 2020-04-30
The Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to build the first atomic bomb, was one of the most astonishing scientific and technical undertakings in history. But two years and billions of dollars in, an alarming discovery threatened to derail the project entirely, and the feasibility of the atomic bomb came to rest on a single experiment codenamed RaLa.
All Comments (21)
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Now this is what I like to call an informative and a QUALITY video. Well done!
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This is some of the best film and photographic documentation of Manhattan Project activity I've seen. Great job.
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My wife and I, and our dogs, used to love the Bayo Canyon hike. I had heard of the RaLa tests but had no idea that they had been conducted in Bayo Canyon.
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My Father worked on the “Super” I grew up on “ the Hill”. Thanks for this amplification. The pictures brought back many fond memories.
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Pretty much all of these presentations ignore the development and casting of the conventional explosive lenses. As pointed out in this presentation, the hardest part of the job. After lack of progress by one institution, the problem was given to NOTS (Naval Ordnance Test Station) at China Lake, California. This was the grand dad of the current organization the Naval Air Weapons Center, China Lake.
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I heard Teller tell of the moment they considered implosion as likely to work. Johnny Neumann quickly calculated the pressure that could be reached. Johnny being a human calculator and also working with the US Army explosives specialists. Teller had just happened to do some previous work so that he knew plutonium was compressible above a certain pressure. Johnny's calculation was well above the pressure Teller knew would make plutonium compress and said so and so on it went.
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This is an amazing video explanation. Thank you!
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A number of textbooks i've read mention the difference between gun and implosion type bombs, but never actually stated why plutonium wasn't used in gun type bombs. Interesting to finally know why.
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Very good explanations, thanks.
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Fascinating presentation thanks xxx
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A little gem of a story - thank you!
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Thank you!
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TATB explosive, bridgewire detonators and explosive lenses. I don’t think most people realize how important just those three inventions are.
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Thank you. That was most informative, with just the right amount of technical detail for me to understand. Now I'm off to look up exploding bridge switches or whatever they're called.
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Good work my friend
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One definite correction and one possible. The definite: the amount of plutonium240 was lowered by limiting the uranium exposure time in the reactor. This made the implosion easier. The other, I believe the gun uranium bomb was tested by having the outer shell not stop, but continue past the inner plug, and by not using a neutron reflector. This part I'm not sure of as its been many years since I read "The Manhatten Project". Other than those, the video was quite good.
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Fantastic!
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Interesting story, always wondered how they figured these things out.
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Terrific, well presented and very interesting.
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Very InTeReStiNg. Thank you...
