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What is missing here that the III Reich was the first to have the bomb in theory.
The German scientists had produced nuclear fission in the laboratory. They had also been looking at nuclear fusion and U-235 separations and were approaching criticality in a nuclear pile in a cave at Haigerloch.
Heisenberg warned the German government in the fall of 1941 that the Americans were pursuing a nuclear explosive (plutonium) that could be made in a chain-reacting pile. The warning resulted in receiving the highest priority for his work from Albert Speer, Hitler's minister of munitions. Heisenberg calculated the critical mass for a bomb in a December 6, 1939 report for the German Army Weapons Department. His formula, with the nuclear parameter values assumed at that time, yielded a critical mass in the hundreds of tons of "nearly pure" uranium 235 (U235) required for an exploding reactor, Heisenberg's model for a bomb at that point. This was vastly beyond what Germany could hope to produce. With uranium out of the question, the Germans decided to go for plutonium, which meant building an atomic pile [a nuclear reactor] to convert natural uranium into plutonium. What Heisenberg did not know that to calculate it is
enough to know size of the Uranium crystal form Laue X-ray exp, the size of the nucleus from Rutherford, and to
assume uranium is a regular crystal which is not transparent after the neutron free path untill it hits the nucleus
of uranium and the reaction always accoures when it hits. This estimates the critical mass right.
If he did not use the Quantum Mechanics at all but only data from experiments Germany would win
the war !!!

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Posted By: smoothazsilc01 @ 09/17/2009 12:23:03 PM
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Posted By: mattnews @ 07/18/2009 6:03:51 AM

What is missing here that the III Reich was the first to have the bomb in theory.
The German scientists had produced nuclear fission in the laboratory. They had also been looking at nuclear fusion and U-235 separations and were approaching criticality in a nuclear pile in a cave at Haigerloch.
Heisenberg warned the German government in the fall of 1941 that the Americans were pursuing a nuclear explosive (plutonium) that could be made in a chain-reacting pile. The warning resulted in receiving the highest priority for his work from Albert Speer, Hitler's minister of munitions. Heisenberg calculated the critical mass for a bomb in a December 6, 1939 report for the German Army Weapons Department. His formula, with the nuclear parameter values assumed at that time, yielded a critical mass in the hundreds of tons of "nearly pure" uranium 235 (U235) required for an exploding reactor, Heisenberg's model for a bomb at that point. This was vastly beyond what Germany could hope to produce. With uranium out of the question, the Germans decided to go for plutonium, which meant building an atomic pile [a nuclear reactor] to convert natural uranium into plutonium. What Heisenberg did not know that to calculate it is
enough to know size of the Uranium crystal form Laue X-ray exp, the size of the nucleus from Rutherford, and to
assume uranium is a regular crystal which is not transparent after the neutron free path untill it hits the nucleus
of uranium and the reaction always accoures when it hits. This estimates the critical mass right.
If he did not use the Quantum Mechanics at all but only data from experiments Germany would win
the war !!!
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Posted By: gabri_hawk @ 06/03/2009 12:15:16 PM

From my point of view, it's extremely sad to watch massive destruction weapons being developed. Yet, I thing USA has not "moral" to complain about this issues.Who has gone over UN decisions alleaging that Iraq had massive destruction weapons?Which country was responsible for using two nuclear bombs killing thousands of people in Japan?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?