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Heisenberg made strange claims after the war that he intentionally tried to derail the Nazi bomb after the war, but on closer inspection, these claims don't hol
by nappy 11y ago
Heisenberg made strange claims after the war that he intentionally tried to derail the Nazi bomb after the war, but on closer inspection, these claims don't hold water. It's not clear that German scientists were ever even close to the principles behind building a functional bomb.
- codeulike 11y agoThere is a great play about this, 'copenhagen' by Michael Frayn.
- ufmace 11y agoI always thought the idea of German scientists sandbagging because they didn't want to give the Nazis the bomb was interesting. I'm not sure where I read it, but I read somewhere that all through the war, they made the numbers out to be that a bomb was a practical impossibility, like the critical mass for a chain reaction being on the order of tons instead of kilograms. Despite this, when they were told of the successful American use of the fission bomb, one of them quickly sketched out how the bomb had to have worked. I haven't read anything solid on it either way, but it's compelling to think that some of the most critical people held off on doing their best because they didn't want Hitler to have it. I do remember reading that it was pretty well established that the German foreign intelligence agency was doing just that - phoning it in because they couldn't stand Hitler.