24 Facts About Tube Alloys

Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War.

Tube Alloys's Tube Alloys Directorate was part of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Tube Alloys reckoned that if a neutron reflector were placed around it, this might be reduced to 12 tonnes.

Tube Alloys too calculated the critical mass of a sphere of uranium in a theoretical paper written in 1939 to be "of the order of tons".

Tube Alloys in turn passed them to Thomson, to whom the CSSAW had delegated responsibility for uranium research.

Related searches

Directorate of Tube Alloys was established as part of Appleton's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and Wallace Akers, the research director of Imperial Chemical Industries, was chosen as its head.

Tube Alloys suspected the gun method of detonation for a plutonium bomb would lead to premature detonations due to impurities.

Sir John Anderson was eager to invite Niels Bohr to the Tube Alloys project because he was a world-famous scientist who would not only contribute his expertise to the project, but help the British government gain leverage in dealings with the Manhattan Project.

Tube Alloys attempted to prevent a post-war atomic arms race with the Soviet Union, which he believed to be a serious threat.

Tube Alloys urged that Britain and the United States should inform the Soviet Union about the Manhattan Project in order to decrease the likelihood of its feeling threatened on the premise that the other nations were building a bomb behind its back.

Tube Alloys's beliefs stemmed from his conviction that the Russians already knew about the Manhattan Project, leading him to believe there was no point in hiding it from them.

Tube Alloys reasoned that the longer the United States and Britain hid their nuclear advances, the more threatened the Russians would feel and the more inclined to speed up their effort to produce an atomic bomb of their own.

Tube Alloys tightened security, which dried up the flow of information to Britain.

American officials were particularly concerned that Akers and other people from ICI involved in the Tube Alloys project were trying to exploit American nuclear scientific knowledge to create a profitable post-war industry.

Tube Alloys, therefore, fell behind in the race with the Manhattan Project.

Tube Alloys realised the scale of such sites as Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was the new headquarters of the project, and could safely conclude that without similar industrial site being found in Germany the chances of the Nazi atomic bomb project being successful was very low.

Tube Alloys eventually convinced Groves of Rotblat's integrity to the cause, and this led to Rotblat being accepted to the Manhattan Project without renouncing his nationality.

William Penney, one of the Tube Alloys scientists, was an expert in shock waves.

Tube Alloys worked on the means to assess the effects of a nuclear explosion, and wrote a paper on what height the bombs should be detonated at for maximum effect in attacks on Germany and Japan.

Tube Alloys served as a member of the target committee established by Groves to select Japanese cities for atomic bombing, and on Tinian with Project Alberta as a special consultant.

Tube Alloys formed part of the Manhattan Project's post-war scientific mission to Hiroshima and Nagasaki that assessed the extent of the damage caused by the bombs.

Tube Alloys was Ursula Kuczynski, the sister of Jurgen Kuczynski.

Tube Alloys was a German communist, a major in Soviet Military Intelligence and an experienced agent who had worked with Richard Sorge's spy ring in the Far East.

Tube Alloys broke down the development tasks required to replicate it, identifying outstanding questions that required further research on nuclear weapons.