#Manhattan Project

[usnatarchives]

Honoring Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu: The First Lady of Physics 🥼⚙🔭

As we celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, let’s take a moment to appreciate Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu, a physicist who made considerable contributions to nuclear physics and worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Early Life and Education

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu was born on May 31, 1912, in a small town near Shanghai, China. Her father was big on education, especially for girls, which was uncommon at the time. Wu went to National Central University in Nanjing to study physics and later moved to the United States for further studies. She got her Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1940.

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28883982

Big Contributions to Physics

During World War II, Wu joined the Manhattan Project. She helped develop the atomic bomb by figuring out how to enrich uranium and study radioactive isotopes. Her most famous work was in 1956, when she proved that the law of parity conservation doesn’t hold in weak nuclear interactions. This was an important advancement for physics and earned her colleagues, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957. Sadly, Wu didn’t get the Nobel recognition even though her experiment was crucial.

Legacy and Recognition

Dr. Wu’s work earned her the nickname "The First Lady of Physics." She received many awards, including the Comstock Prize in Physics and the National Medal of Science in 1990. Besides her scientific work, Wu was a big advocate for women in science and education, encouraging young women to pursue STEM careers. During her career Dr. Wu also taught at Princeton and Columbia Universities. She received the National Medal of Science from President Ford on October 18, 1976, “for her ingenious experiments that led to new and surprising understanding of the decay of the radioactive nucleus.“

Explore More About Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu

To learn more about Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu’s life and work, check out these resources from the National Archives:

The Manhattan Project

Women in STEM

Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

As we celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, let’s remember Dr. Wu’s contributions and how she paved the way for future scientists. Her story is a reminder of the importance of perseverance and the pursuit of knowledge.

[aphroditeslover11]

Today I discovered a mid-century photographer called Philippe Halsman who photographed the famous people of his era, from Richard Nixon to Marilyn Monroe. At the end of his sessions he would ask the person to jump into the air for a picture, believing that this would cause them to drop their pretenses and public persona, leaving him with a picture of the real person as they made their leap. He called this ‘jumpology’.

This is the photo he took of Robert Oppenheimer in 1958, possibly the most free and unreserved image of him that I’ve ever seen.

[thefearandnow]

So with Oppenheimer coming out tomorrow, I feel a certain level of responsibility to share some important resources for people to understand more about the context of the Manhattan Project. Because for my family, it’s not just a piece of history but an ongoing struggle that’s colonized and irradiated generations of New Mexicans’ lives and altered our identity forever. Not only has the legacy of the Manhattan Project continued to harm and displace Indigenous and Hispanic people but it’s only getting bigger: Biden recently tasked the Los Alamos National Lab facility to create 30 more plutonium pits (the core of a nuclear warhead) by 2026. So this is a list of articles, podcasts and books to check out to hear the real stories of the local people living with this unique legacy that’s often overlooked. 

This is simply the latest mainstream interest in the Oppenheimer story and it always ALWAYS silences the trauma of the brown people the US government took advantage of to make their death star. I might see the movie, I honestly might not. I’m not trying to judge anyone for seeing what I’m sure will be an entertaining piece of art. I just want y’all to leave the theater knowing that this story goes beyond what’s on the screen and touches real people’s lives: people whose whole families died of multiple cancers from radiation from the Trinity test, people who’s ancestral lands were poisoned, people who never came back from their job because of deadly work conditions. This is our story too.

The first and best place to learn more about this history and how to support those still resisting is to follow Tewa Women United. They’ve assembled an incredible list of resources from the people who’ve been fighting this fight the longest.

https://tewawomenunited.org/2023/07/oppenheimer-and-the-other-side-of-the-story

The writer Alicia Inez Guzman is currently writing a series about the nuclear industrial complex in New Mexico, its history and cultural impacts being felt today.

https://searchlightnm.org/my-nuclear-family/

https://searchlightnm.org/the-abcs-of-a-nuclear-education/

https://searchlightnm.org/plutonium-by-degrees/

Danielle Prokop at Source NM is an excellent reporter (and friend) who has been covering activists fighting for Downwinder status from the federal government. They’re hoping that the success of Oppenheimer will bring new attention to their cause.

https://sourcenm.com/2023/07/19/anger-hope-for-nm-downwinders/

https://sourcenm.com/2022/01/27/new-mexico-downwinders-demand-recognition-justice/

One often ignored side of the Manhattan Project story that’s personal for me is that the government illegally seized the land that the lab facilities eventually were built on. Before 1942, it was homesteading land for ranchers for more than 30 families (my grandpa’s side of the family was one). But when the location was decided, the government evicted the residents, bought their land for peanuts and used their cattle for target practice. Descendants of the homesteaders later sued and eventually did get compensated for their treatment (though many say it was far below what they were owed)

https://www.hcn.org/issues/175/5654

Myrriah Gomez is an incredible scholar in this field, working as a historian, cultural anthropologist and activist using a framework of “nuclear colonialism” to foreground the Manhattan Project. Her book Nuclear Nuevo Mexico is an amazing collection of oral stories and archival record that positions New Mexico’s era of nuclear colonialism in the context of its Spanish and American eras of colonialism. A must read for anyone who’s made it this far.

https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/nuclear-nuevo-mexico

There isn’t a ton of podcasts about this (yet 👀) but recently the Washington Post’s podcast Field Trip did an episode about White Sands National Monument. The story is a beautifully written and sound designed piece that spotlights the Downwinder activists and also a discovery of Indigenous living in the Trinity test area going back thousands of years. I was blown away by it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/field-trip/white-sands-national-park/

[humanoidhistory]

Camera bunker at Trinity Site, New Mexico, where the world's first nuclear weapon was detonated. (Library of Congress)

[scipunk]

Oppenheimer (2023)

[un-ionizetheradlab]

FINALLY found the meme I've been looking for...

@nuklearis-sutotok

[coolthingsguyslike]

[probablyasocialecologist]

Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project knew from the start that this place was not all that isolated and was far from uninhabited. There were, in fact, dozens of families within 20 miles, largely poor families of ranchers and farmers, many Hispanic and Indigenous, who unwittingly went about their daily lives in the first fallout of the atomic age. Now, those who were infants and children downwind of the detonation of the “Gadget”—a code name for the plutonium bomb used in the Trinity test—are nearing the end of a decades-long battle to be recognized and compensated for generations of illness they trace to exposure from radioactive fallout.

[...]

The reactions of Manhattan Project observers at the Trinity site are well documented. “Words haven’t been invented to describe it,” physicist Val Fitch said of the enormous fireball. General Thomas Farrell said the awesome roar “warned of doomsday and made us feel that we puny things were blasphemous.” “A few people laughed, a few people cried,” Oppenheimer recalled years later. “I remembered a line from the Hindu scripture . . . Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Physicist Kenneth Bainbridge said, “Now we are all sons of bitches.” Less documented are the reactions of the many New Mexicans who lived near Trinity. They had no warning, no context for the star-level explosion that shook their homes and startled them awake that morning. Worse, in the weeks after the test, they were never advised that their land, crops, livestock, and water may have been irradiated. A 2010 report to the CDC used archives at Los Alamos National Laboratory to re-examine the extent to which New Mexicans were unknowingly exposed to radioactive contamination from Trinity. Its findings revealed a shambolic and sometimes cynical effort to track the Gadget’s fallout that windy morning using “crude” and “ineffective” measures. Spotlights were deployed to try to follow the 230 tons of sand and ash falling from the mushroom cloud as it dispersed over southern New Mexico. Film badges designed to detect and measure radiation had been sent to nearby post offices before the test, but because of the Manhattan Project’s secret nature, there was little explanation on how the badges were meant to be used or why, and so they were deployed incorrectly or not at all. Some soldiers assigned to chase and monitor the radioactive cloud couldn’t relay their findings to headquarters in Albuquerque because they were not equipped with long-distance radios; other monitors attempted to gather fallout samples with domestic Filter Queen brand vacuum cleaners. (These samples were later lost or destroyed.) At least one monitor left the area after his superior declared tracking fallout a “waste of time,” while another soldier misplaced his respirator and took the official but scientifically misguided precaution of breathing through a slice of bread.

[lacontroller1991]

Fluff/WhumpTOBER Day 8: Ernest Lawrence x F!Reader

Day 8: Chopping and Piling Wood/Sleep Deprivation Masterlist Warnings: 16+, some light drinking, one sexual suggestion Word Count: 1.1k Author's Note: SOUTH DAKOTAN BOY I LOVE YOU

Also this picture inspired everything in this:

When Ernest had invited you and your brothers out to South Dakota for the weekend, never in your wildest dreams had you imagined that you would be standing on the porch of his family’s home, drinking a hot cup of coffee, watching your crush of 3 years chop wood, and look good while doing it.

Every time you’ve seen him, he’s always nicely dressed, polished shoes, combed back hair, ironed sleeves and a nice watch. He’s always handsome, refined, and polite. But watching the way his arms raise back, the cotton material of his work shirt stretching with each movement, the slight sweat glistening down his forehead to his back leaving a steady growing sweat stain has you burning up in the cold South Dakota morning.

“You know it’s rude to stare.” Your eyes don’t leave Ernest’s body as you watch the way his arms swing down, the chunk of tree easily splitting into two. I want him to split me into two.

“(Y/N)!” Robert’s voice causes both you and Ernest to perk up your heads, you turning to look at your brother, and your crush turning to watch you and his friend. “What has gotten into you?”

“Hay Fever,” mumbling softly, you move away from the edge of the porch, sitting down in a rocker, cup of coffee getting colder by the second in your hands. “It’s cold out here, the pollen must be getting to me.” Robert looks around before his eyes fall on Ernest, whose head is tilting in confusion, hands on hips and chest heaving. Shaking his head, Robert turns back to you and smirks.

“When are you going to confess?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Robert’s not dumb. He’s exactly the opposite. Aside from his academic intelligence, his perception of the world and people around him aid him in moments like this. Knowing that there is no point in lying to your brother, you let out a sigh, eyes flicking down to avoid his piercing blue gaze. “Ok fine, so I have a crush on him. So what? Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Crush on who?” Your blood freezes as your heart races. You never mentioned his name, but anyone with two bits of perception can piece together that you harbor feelings towards the experimental physicist. 

“One of our mutual friends back in New York,” Robert is quick to save the conversation as you look up, raising a hand to block the halo of light behind Ernest, not missing the way his smile turns into a frown. 

“Oh. I see. I’m not good with that kind of stuff, but you should talk to him,” he offers a polite smile, using a rag from his back pocket to wipe the sweat away from his face. His eyes find yours, his glasses tucked away somewhere else. “Aren’t you cold out here?”

Between the open cotton shirt, suspenders hanging limply at his sides, and hair in his face, it’s only your extremities that are cold. “I- uh, I needed some fresh air. I think the air inside is messing with my allergies.” Robert snorts from beside you but Ernest decides not to comment on it, instead giving you a nod of acknowledgment. 

“Right. Well, Robert, can you help me carry these in?” Ernest saunters off while Robert casts a brief smile down at you.

“Yeah, be right there,” he calls out before leaning down and pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You should talk to him.”

“Only in my dreams,” you reply quietly as he walks away, joining Ernest.

—-------

If there is one good thing about having come all the way out to the middle of nowhere, it’s the stars. Thousands shine down on you in solitude, but they keep you company as you huddle around the small fire, blanket wrapped around your shoulders. You can vaguely hear laughter coming from inside the house over the crackle of the flames from the wood.

Soft footsteps make their way toward you, causing you to roll your eyes. “Go away, Robert. I told you I want to be left alone.”

“Not Robert,” Ernest comments with a sigh, plopping down next to you on the log, body clad in a warm jacket with a bottle of booze in his hands. Offering the peace greeting, Ernest allows you to take the bottle out of his hands and into your own, immediately taking more than a few sips. “Whoa there. Calm down,” he chuckles, gently grabbing the bottle from your grasp and pulling it away from your lips. ”Don’t want you getting sick on me.”

“Well, it does help with the warmness,” you smile softly, trying your hardest to avoid his gaze, knowing that if you looked at him, then you wouldn’t stop looking at him. The light of a fire highlighting his gorgeous features more than what you can reasonably tolerate.  

Humming, Ernest takes a swig from the bottle, liquid sloshing around as his legs spread a little wider, the outer part of his thigh almost pressing against yours. Setting down the bottle, Ernest looks to you, glasses back on his face. “What’s wrong? You haven’t been yourself lately. I didn’t want to pry, but it’s cold out here and you’re choosing it over us and warmth. Did I say something? Did Robert say something? He probably didn’t mean it.”

His words cause a laugh to erupt from you, hand going up to stifle the laugh as he smiles, happy to have gotten a response from you. “God, you know Robert so well. Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh.” Ernest shakes his head in response, brushing you off.

“I think it’s the first time you’ve smiled this whole trip.”

“You’ve been paying attention to if I’m smiling or not?”

“Well, yeah… It’s just not normal for you not to smile, and I like seeing your smile.” Is he… flirting? Reaching for the bottle, you hastily down more, ignoring the way his eyes watch you in concern.

“What do you think of me?”

“What do you mean? You’re my friend.” Oh. Well, there’s your answer. 

Seeming to notice your sudden somberness, Ernest tries to wrap his brain around the situation. What did he say or do that could cause you to be so sullen?  “She likes you, Ernest. Do something about it.” Robert’s words ring in his ears. “I would like to be more than friends.”

Your head snaps to him in shock, but he meets you halfway with his warm hands on your face, gently pulling you into him as his lips place themselves on yours. Surprised at the forwardness, it takes you a second to recognize what he’s doing. Throwing your arms over  his shoulders, you pull him closer as your lips mold against his, the warmth shared between the two of you chasing the cold South Dakotan night away.

-fin-

@un-ionizetheradlab @anonymous-badger-238

[lindahall]

Samuel Goudsmit – Scientist of the Day

Samuel Abaham Goudsmit, a Dutch-American physicist, died Dec. 4, 1978, at the age of 76. Goudsmit was born in The Hague and studied physics at the University of ...

learn more

[aphroditeslover11]

Possibly my favourite photograph of Oppie that I have found to date, at home with his son and taken for an edition of Life Magazine in 1949 by Alfred Eisenstaedt, of which he was on the front cover. He just seems so normal here, interacting with his son like any father would, it’s very humanising. Pictures like this are what remind us that historical figures were real people, not just mystical figures of the past that we find in textbooks.

[anonymous-badger-238]

pick a best friend

You know that meme where they show you different outfits and you think of names of the people who would wear them and talk about their personalities?

I have no idea how true this is but pick a Rad Lab "boy"

[waking-ophanophore]

Transparent PNG Feynmans and swiggles so you too can Feynman your friends

Because I have too much free time and I love this man

Swiggles are from that one picture of Teller teaching physics that I didn't save when cropping the picture. Though I do still have the picture I got Feynman from

[zsanett-suta]