1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996466845703316

Autore

Reed Bruce Cameron

Titolo

The physics of the Manhattan Project / / Bruce Cameron Reed

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham, Switzerland : , : Springer, , [2021]

©2021

ISBN

3-030-61373-9

Edizione

[Fourth edition.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XXIII, 256 p. 88 illus.)

Disciplina

623.45119

Soggetti

Nuclear fission

Nuclear weapons

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Preface -- Preamble: Fundamental Data On Little Boy and Fat Man -- Energy Release in Nuclear Reactions, Neutrons, Fission, and Characteristics of Fission -- Critical Mass, Efficiency, and Yield -- Producing Fissile Material -- Complicating Factors -- Miscellaneous Calculations -- Appendices (A-K).

Sommario/riassunto

The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth century. This revised and updated 4th edition explores the challenges that faced the scientists and engineers of the Manhattan Project. It gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the level of an upper-year undergraduate physics student by examining the details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, analytic and numerical models of the fission process, how critical masses can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what factors complicate bomb design. An extensive list of references and a number of exercises for self-study are included. Revisions to this fourth edition include many upgrades and new sections. Improvements are made to, among other things, the analysis of the physics of the fission barrier, the time-dependent simulation of the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and the discussion of tamped bomb cores. New sections cover, for example, composite bomb cores, approximate methods for various of the calculations presented, and the physics of the polonium-beryllium "neutron initiators" used to



trigger the bombs. The author delivers in this book an unparalleled, clear and comprehensive treatment of the physics behind the Manhattan project.