Slashdot Mirror
Lost Nazi Uranium Found In a Dutch Scrapyard
colin_faber writes "Lewis Page of the Register is reporting that forensic nuclear scientists at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre traced the two pieces of metal found in a Dutch scrapyard — described as a cube and a plate — back to their exact origins and dates. Apparently both came from ores extracted at the 'Joachimsthal' mine in what is now the Czech Republic from the former Nazi nuclear-weapons programme of the 1940s." The article runs through the roadblocks that, unknown to the Allies, the Nazi regime erected against their possible success in any nuclear bomb development during the war.
Furthermore the Germans were hampered by having driven many top physicists out of the country with their anti-Semitic policies, and also by drafting other boffins into the army to fight as ordinary soldiers.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
An irradiated lead refrigerator with the body of the legendary tomb raider Indiana Jones was also discovered.
damn. thats hardcore.
There's been a lot of controversy over whether Heisenberg deliberately sabotaged the Nazi bomb-making or whether he tried to help but was incompetent or whether the failure was due to factors beyond Heisenberg. Although I have not read the book, I've been told that Paul Rose's book "Heisenberg and the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project" presents a strong case that Heisenberg tried his hardest to assist the Nazi regime in the building of the atom bomb.
Fun trivia: Joachimsthal mine is where we get the modern word "dollar." Silver extracted from this mine was minted to attest its purity and the coin thus produced was called a "thaler." TH is a relatively unusual consonant sound in many languages, and corrupts to D in romance languages like French, and here we are.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I can't wait to see the Youtube Hitler video on this one!
The issue of Heisenberg, and any theoretical physicist being treated like a pariah (and thus dooming Nazi Germany's atom bomb program) is very instructive. The Nazi's made a political and ideological decision, to wit:
They would then cast about trying to find every white atheist physicist who had doubts about 20th century physics, and then give them huge grants, fat think tank jobs, and would promote their work to the moon and back. On the other hand they would work to suppress the contributions of people like Lise Meitner, who used the 'Jewish physics' to provide them with proof of the first lab fission reaction.
I suppose there's some sort of argument pro or con of climate change in this... exercise for the reader.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Is this the first slashdot article that mentions nazis right in the title?
I misread that as "Lost Nazi Uniforms Found in a Dutch Scrapyard" and failed to see why that would make news.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
2080: "Toldja Iraq had WMD's"
Table-ized A.I.
I've got an idea for a new Dirk Pitt novel...
Hey stumm Hintern - Sie haben den Krieg verloren - noch eine weitere Sache, die Sie saugen an
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
FTA: Furthermore, they had taken good care not to big that aspect of the research up to their Nazi masters, for reasons of self-interest
I doubt Heisenberg ever said that, even translated from the German. To big [...] up. Jesus wept, is that OK in journalism now? Not only 21st century lazy slang but a split infinitive as well.
In case any of you Americans were wondering what a Boffin is, it is a scientist. Here is a quote from wikipedia,
"In the slang of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, boffins are scientists, medical doctors, engineers, and other people engaged in technical or scientific research.
The word 'boffin' (or 'boff'—often as an insult[1]) can also be used to refer to any particularly clever person. The closest American equivalent is "egghead"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin
I thought we were all clear on that.
http://www.ironsky.net/site/index.php#teaser
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Even in German, the trolls still get modded down.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
With one nut?
French is the language of romance, but I understand that as a slashdotter, you might not know this. I read it in a book. Very intresting apparently it all is designed to lead to sex, whatever that might be. Further reading might be in order.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I couldn't even find a dashboard for a 2001 Ford Mondeo when I was searching Dutch scrapyards.
Well, I for one, welcome our radioactive Zombie Nazi Overlord uniforms...to the scrapyard?!!?!??
That just does not roll off the tongue well.....never mind.
*hangs head and slinks off, mumbling something about looking cooler in Dutch*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Some bits were unfortunately left out of the Reg story. Most notably the way Hogan tricked Col. Klink into drinking some of the heavy water from the shipment, thus cutting into vital Nazi supplies.
#DeleteChrome
Oh, that must be the politically correct name of the German state, specifically under Hitler's occupation?
Oh wait, wasn't that a free, democratic election by the German people that brought Hitler to power?
Obviously they meant "to embiggen".
GP is not a German. His text was clearly machine-translated, so is yours, leading to very funny statements.
Yours basically means: Hey, a mute bottom, you have lost the war - another thing that you siphon.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
but this story godwinned itself, so what's the point?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We've hidden the Uranium here, here, and here."
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
Mijn luchtkussenboot zit vol paling.
It was probably meant to say, "Hey dumb ass, you lost the war - another thing, you suck!".
try { Signature mysig = new CleverAttempt(); } catch(NonCleverSignatureException e) { postanyway(); }
That looks like Dutch, but I do get the "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" reference
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I think you meant to say:
That depends on how you look at it.
There is a truly excellent book, "Hitler's Uranium Club" which documents what the Germans themselves said about their efforts. It is edited by Jeremy Bernstein. It is a collection of transcriptions of conversations among the leading German scientists (Heisenberg, Laue, etc., not all of whom were actually doing nuclear physics), who were captured lat in the war and transferred to Farm Hall in England. They were recorded secretly, so what is said is very candid.
Anyone interested in this history should definitely read the book. The conversations run the gamut from very technical, to various fights over social issues.
The Nazi's were at least superficially Christian and opposed atheism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_religious_views#Hitler.27s_reaction_to_atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany
The Nazis were more than just superficially Christian, most of them were very Christian, and had the overt support of the leadership of both the two main Christinan churches in Germany at the time (Catholic and Lutheren), for both the party in general and the policy of exterminating the Jews in particular.
The reason so many people believe the Nazis were athiests is because of a couple of quotes taken out of context, and because the Catholic church has spared no expense (or Jesuit historian) rewriting history and glossing over their own involvement in both the policies and the atrocities. Indeed, they've even managed to gloss over the fact that Hitler was quite devoutly Catholic (and not particularly out of character in his behaviour--just look at how Columbus treated the natives of the West Indies, or Cortez the Mayans and Aztecs, or...the list goes on, ad nauseum, all with the blessing, both tacit and overt, of the Catholic Christian authorities).
This actually becomes more obviuos when you look at the longer history of Catholic pogroms and inquisitions against the Jews that litter the history of Europe. The Nazi holocaust is merely the latest and most notorious. What a coup, to help organise and support such a massive Christian pogrom against a people, then send out your cadres of revisionist "historians" to recharacterise those responsible not as fellow Christians, but as Athiests...about the only group who wouldn't be inclined to support, much less lead, a pogrom against a population simply because their ancesters are rumourted to have cricified one of their deities two thousand years earlier.
Indeed, as you note, the Nazis came after Athiests with much the same ferver as todays Teabaggers, Truthers, and other right-wing zealots. Some things never change.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Romania was a colony the Romans set up in eastern europe (hence the name) after wiping out the Dacians.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
as i let the joke sink in, i attempt to measure an increase in humor. however, in the act of making that measurement, i find that i cannot isolate the amount of humor exactly. what is going on here?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The fact this can be traced to production batches at Joachimstal during the war is interesting for the following reason: it was a mine incapable of supporting a nuclear weapon program.
Joachimstal (Jachymov today) is an ancient and famous mining district (others have noted here that Thaler == Dollar originated from its name) and due to radon gas in its mine is also the earliest recorded incidences of death from occupational radiation exposure - - - lung cancer was a common cause of death of underground miners from the 16th century onward. It was also a prominent source of material for the discovery of radiation and radioactive elements.
But it could only produce a few tens of tons of uranium annually! Something like a 1000 tons of uranium was needed to support an effective nuclear weapons program.
Germany had however a couple of thousand tons of already mined and processed ore from the Belgian Congo, captured at the outset of the war. This material was perfect for a nuclear weapons program - if it had one. This material was captured by the U.S. at the end of the war unused. A couple of thousand tons of ore from this same mine and shipped to the U.S. before the war in fact powered the Manhattan Project through most of its wartime operations.
That Germany was still relying on old pre-war supply arrangements through Joamchimstal to obtain research uranium is very interesting. It is another manifestation of the failure to create a real weapons program.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
That is what Google translate gives me, so I would guess that is what he meant to say.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.
This is nazi uranium you are looking for!
oh wait...
That there's no such person as Edward Teller? It's always Edward Tellerfatherofthehydrogenbomb...
rj
It's like they've never even heard of the Simpsons.
kisisel gelisim kisisel basari Video ders Egitim
Urban legend actually, it's generally accepted that the sources for that rumour are unreliable
Mao However...
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Great Band Name!!!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
What happened January 21st?
Rethinking email
b4 the bombing of Iran that will likely come in March. How convenient that they just found this? This will help cement the "nazi/iranian/nukes/must prevent them" meme in the public mind. Why? 1. Israeli guilt/security concerns and 2. oil geopolitics in the face of collapsing world supplies (the EROEI on shale and tar sands will never be positive no matter the price of crude and US strategic planners know this). Throw in some military industrial profits and the urge to distract the public from their economic misery and you've got a war unless the Russians or Chinese stop it. The industrialized powers need oil to be as cheap as possible, to do that they must make the Iranians unable to use it domestically. This means destroying their consumption. Witness the decline in domestic Iraqi oil consumption after we invaded. They had a modern economy (with a despot to be sure). Now they have untreated water, no more public health care and next to no electric power, and, probably, the same Potemkin democracy we in the USA have. All the talk of an arms race is bull; it is an open secret that the Israelis have a large nuclear arsenal already while their neighbors have none. http://www.warsocialism.com/
Was your post intended to be a slight against Leo Szilard?