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Lost Nazi Uranium Found In a Dutch Scrapyard

Posted by kdawson on from the sturm-und-drang dept.

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.

4 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Many boffins died ... by DrJimbo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... to bring us this information. Context:

    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
    1. Re:Many boffins died ... by martyros · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think the quote from Heisenberg in the article is particularly interesting:

      "We definitely did not want to get into this bomb business," said Heisenberg. "I wouldn't like to idealize this; we did this also for our personal safety. We thought that the probability that this would lead to atomic bombs during the War was nearly zero. If we had done otherwise, and if many thousand people had been put to work on it and then if nothing had been developed, this could have had extremely disagreeable consequences for us."

      In other words, simple-minded tyrants think that the best way to motivate people is to say, "Make this happen or die." (And less powerful but just as simple-minded people in the workplace use "Make this happen or lose your job.") But one result is that no one is willing to suggest the idea of anything moderately risky, for fear that they'll be put to work on making that happen, and punished when it can't be done.

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

  2. Politics by iluvcapra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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:

    Quantum mechanics and general relativity is all about 'relativism' and 'ambiguity,' and is unworthy of Aryan science. It's emphasis on relative physical laws and indeterminacy are endemic of its moral turpitude and obvious Jewish origins.

    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.
  3. Re:quick, someone call Clive Cussler! by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no such thing as a *new* Dirk Pitt novel, they all have roughly the same plot.