A report on Stanislaw Ulam, John von Neumann and Project Y

Robert Oppenheimer (left), Leslie Groves (center) and Robert Sproul (right) at the ceremony to present the Los Alamos Laboratory with the Army-Navy "E" Award at the Fuller Lodge on 16 October 1945

Von Neumann's birthplace, at 16 Báthory Street, Budapest. Since 1968, it has housed the John von Neumann Computer Society.

In nuclear fission, the atomic nucleus of a heavy element splits into two or more light ones when a neutron is captured. If more neutrons are emitted, a nuclear chain reaction becomes possible.

The Scottish Café's building now houses the Universal Bank in Lviv, Ukraine.

Excerpt from the university calendars for 1928 and 1928/29 of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin announcing Neumann's lectures on the theory of functions II, axiomatic set theory and mathematical logic, the mathematical colloquium, review of recent work in quantum mechanics, special functions of mathematical physics and Hilbert's proof theory. He also lectured on the theory of relativity, set theory, integral equations and analysis of infinitely many variables.

In nuclear fusion, the nuclei of light elements are fused to create a heavier element.

Map of Los Alamos site, New Mexico, 1943–45

History of approaches that led to NBG set theory

Four-family apartment units at Los Alamos

Ivy Mike, the first full test of the Teller–Ulam design (a staged fusion bomb), with a yield of 10.4 megatons on 1 November 1952

Flow chart from von Neumann's "Planning and coding of problems for an electronic computing instrument," published in 1947.

The Technical Area at Los Alamos. There was a perimeter fence around the entire site, but also an inner fence shown here around the Technical Area.

The Sausage device of Mike nuclear test (yield 10.4 Mt) on Enewetak Atoll. The test was part of the Operation Ivy. The Sausage was the first true H-Bomb ever tested, meaning the first thermonuclear device built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion.

The first implementation of von Neumann's self-reproducing universal constructor. Three generations of machine are shown: the second has nearly finished constructing the third. The lines running to the right are the tapes of genetic instructions, which are copied along with the body of the machines.

An artist's conception of the NASA reference design for the Project Orion spacecraft powered by nuclear propulsion

A simple configuration in von Neumann's cellular automaton. A binary signal is passed repeatedly around the blue wire loop, using excited and quiescent ordinary transmission states. A confluent cell duplicates the signal onto a length of red wire consisting of special transmission states. The signal passes down this wire and constructs a new cell at the end. This particular signal (1011) codes for an east-directed special transmission state, thus extending the red wire by one cell each time. During construction, the new cell passes through several sensitised states, directed by the binary sequence.

Passage between buildings A and B in the Technical Area

When the positive integers are arrayed along the Ulam spiral, prime numbers, represented by dots, tend to collect along diagonal lines.

Von Neumann's wartime Los Alamos ID badge photo

Isidor Isaac Rabi, Dorothy McKibbin, Robert Oppenheimer and Victor Weisskopf at Oppenheimer's home in Los Alamos in 1944

An animation demonstrating the lucky number sieve. The numbers in red are lucky numbers

A row of Thin Man casings. Fat Man casings are visible in the background. The tow truck was used by the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit to move them.

Operation Redwing nuclear test in July 1956

A ring of electrorefined plutonium. It has a purity of 99.96%, weighs 5.3 kg, and is about 11 cm in diameter. It is enough plutonium for one bomb core. The ring shape helps with criticality safety.

The von Neumann crater, on the far side of the Moon.

Plutonium has six allotropes at ambient pressure: alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), delta (δ), delta prime (δ'), & epsilon (ε)

Explosive lenses are used to compress a fissile core inside an implosion-type nuclear weapon.

An implosion-type nuclear bomb. In the center is the neutron initiator (red). It is surrounded by the plutonium hemispheres. There is a small air gap (white, not in the original Fat Man design) and then the uranium tamper. Around that is the aluminium pusher (purple). This is encased in the explosive lenses (gold). Colors are the same as in the diagram opposite.

Norris Bradbury, group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the partially assembled Gadget atop the Trinity test tower. Later, he became the director of Los Alamos vice Oppenheimer.

A Little Boy unit on Tinian connected to test equipment, possibly to test or charge components within the device

The April 1946 colloquium on the Super. In the front row are (left to right) Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi and J. M. B. Kellogg. Robert Oppenheimer, in dark coat, is behind Manley; to Oppenheimer's left is Richard Feynman. The Army officer on the left is Colonel Oliver Haywood.

Herbert Lehr and Harry Daghlian loading the assembled tamper plug containing the plutonium pit and initiator into a sedan for transport from the McDonald Ranch House to the Trinity shot tower

The explosives of "the gadget" were raised to the top of the tower for the final assembly.

Deak Parsons (right) supervises loading the Little Boy bomb into the B-29 Enola Gay. Norman Ramsey is on his left, with his back to the camera.

Fat Man bomb, with liquid asphalt sealant sprayed on the casing's seams, is readied on Tinian.

Remote handling of a kilocurie source of radiolanthanum for a RaLa Experiment at Los Alamos

Bradbury (left) examines plans for new laboratory sites and permanent housing with Leslie Groves of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (center) and Eric Jette (right) in April 1947; Colonel Lyle E. Seeman stands behind Bradbury, second from the left.

In 1935, John von Neumann, whom Ulam had met in Warsaw, invited him to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for a few months.

- Stanislaw Ulam

Oppenheimer then reorganized the laboratory and orchestrated an all-out and ultimately successful effort on an alternative design proposed by John von Neumann, an implosion-type nuclear weapon, which was called Fat Man.

- Project Y

In October 1943, he received an invitation from Hans Bethe to join the Manhattan Project at the secret Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico.

- Stanislaw Ulam

During World War II, von Neumann worked on the Manhattan Project with theoretical physicist Edward Teller, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam and others, problem-solving key steps in the nuclear physics involved in thermonuclear reactions and the hydrogen bomb.

- John von Neumann

The involvement included frequent trips by train to the project's secret research facilities at the Los Alamos Laboratory in a remote part of New Mexico.

- John von Neumann

Nonetheless, in February 1944, Teller added Stanislaw Ulam, Jane Roberg, Geoffrey Chew, and Harold and Mary Argo to his T-1 Group.

- Project Y

3 related topics with Alpha

Manhattan Project

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Research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons.

Enrico Fermi, John R. Dunning, and Dana P. Mitchell in front of the cyclotron in the basement of Pupin Hall at Columbia University

March 1940 meeting at Berkeley, California: Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Alfred L. Loomis

Different fission bomb assembly methods explored during the July 1942 conference

Manhattan Project Organization Chart, 1 May 1946

Oppenheimer and Groves at the remains of the Trinity test in September 1945, two months after the test blast and just after the end of World War II. The white overshoes prevented fallout from sticking to the soles of their shoes.

Groves confers with James Chadwick, the head of the British Mission.

Shift change at the Y-12 uranium enrichment facility at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on 11 August 1945. By May 1945, 82,000 people were employed at the Clinton Engineer Works. Photograph by the Manhattan District photographer Ed Westcott.

Physicists at a Manhattan District-sponsored colloquium at the Los Alamos Laboratory on the Super in April 1946. In the front row are Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi and J. (Jerome) M. B. Kellogg (1905-1981). Robert Oppenheimer, in dark coat, is behind Manley; to Oppenheimer's left is Richard Feynman. The Army officer on the left is Colonel Oliver Haywood.

Hanford workers collect their paychecks at the Western Union office.

The majority of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project came from the Shinkolobwe mine in Belgian Congo.

Oak Ridge hosted several uranium separation technologies. The Y-12 electromagnetic separation plant is in the upper right. The K-25 and K-27 gaseous diffusion plants are in the lower left, near the S-50 thermal diffusion plant. The X-10 was for plutonium production.

Calutron Girls were young women who monitored calutron control panels at Y-12. Gladys Owens, seated in the foreground, was unaware of what she had been involved in.

The S-50 plant is the dark building to the upper left behind the Oak Ridge powerhouse (with smoke stacks).

Workers load uranium slugs into the X-10 Graphite Reactor.

Aerial view of Hanford B-Reactor site, June 1944

Map of the Hanford Site. Railroads flank the plants to the north and south. Reactors are the three northernmost red squares, along the Columbia River. The separation plants are the lower two red squares from the grouping south of the reactors. The bottom red square is the 300 area.

A row of Thin Man casings. Fat Man casings are visible in the background.

The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon.

Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., speaks to service personnel Oak Ridge Tennessee in August 1945.

A billboard encouraging secrecy among Oak Ridge workers

Security poster, warning office workers to close drawers and put documents in safes when not being used

Allied soldiers dismantle the German experimental nuclear reactor at Haigerloch.

Silverplate B-29 Straight Flush. The tail code of the 444th Bombardment Group is painted on for security reasons.

Little Boy explodes over Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945 (left);
Fat Man explodes over Nagasaki, Japan, 9 August 1945 (right).

Presentation of the Army–Navy "E" Award at Los Alamos on 16 October 1945. Standing, left to right: J. Robert Oppenheimer, unidentified, unidentified, Kenneth Nichols, Leslie Groves, Robert Gordon Sproul, William Sterling Parsons.

President Harry S. Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, establishing the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

The Lake Ontario Ordnance Works (LOOW) near Niagara Falls became a principal repository for Manhattan Project waste for the Eastern United States. All of the radioactive materials stored at the LOOW site—including thorium, uranium, and the world's largest concentration of radium-226—were buried in an "Interim Waste Containment Structure" (in the foreground) in 1991.

A "bomb" (pressure vessel) containing uranium halide and sacrificial metal, probably magnesium, being lowered into a furnace

After the reaction, the interior of a bomb coated with remnant slag

A uranium metal "biscuit" from the reduction reaction

Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs.

In September 1943, John von Neumann, who had experience with shaped charges used in armor-piercing shells, argued that not only would implosion reduce the danger of predetonation and fizzle, but would make more efficient use of the fissionable material.

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Stanislaw Ulam gave one of his students, Joan Hinton, an exam early, so she could leave to do war work.

Edward Teller

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Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" (see the Teller–Ulam design), although he did not care for the title, considering it to be in poor taste.

Physicists at a Manhattan District-sponsored colloquium at Los Alamos on the Super in April 1946. In the front row are (left to right) Norris Bradbury, John Manley, Enrico Fermi and J. M. B. Kellogg. Robert Oppenheimer, in dark coat, is behind Manley; to Oppenheimer's left is Richard Feynman. The Army officer on the left is Colonel Oliver Haywood.

The Teller–Ulam design kept the fission and fusion fuel physically separated from one another, and used X-rays from the primary device "reflected" off the surrounding casing to compress the secondary.

The 10.4 Mt "Ivy Mike" shot of 1952 appeared to vindicate Teller's long-time advocacy for the hydrogen bomb.

Teller testified about J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1954.

One of the Chariot schemes involved chaining five thermonuclear devices to create the artificial harbor.

Teller became a major lobbying force of the Strategic Defense Initiative to President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Appearing on British television discussion After Dark in 1987

In early 1943, the Los Alamos Laboratory was established in Los Alamos, New Mexico to design an atomic bomb, with Oppenheimer as its director.

It included Stanislaw Ulam, Jane Roberg, Geoffrey Chew, Harold and Mary Argo, and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.

With John von Neumann, he contributed an idea of using implosion to ignite the Super.

Enrico Fermi

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Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1.

A light cone is a three-dimensional surface of all possible light rays arriving at and departing from a point in spacetime. Here, it is depicted with one spatial dimension suppressed. The timeline is the vertical axis.

Fermi and his research group (the Via Panisperna boys) in the courtyard of Rome University's Physics Institute in Via Panisperna, c. undefined 1934. From left to right: Oscar D'Agostino, Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi, Franco Rasetti and Fermi

Enrico Fermi between Franco Rasetti (left) and Emilio Segrè in academic dress

$Beta decay. A neutron decays into a proton, and an electron is emitted. In order for the total energy in the system to remain the same, Pauli and Fermi postulated that a neutrino (\bar{\nu}_e) was also emitted.$

Diagram of Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor to achieve a self-sustaining chain reaction. Designed by Fermi, it consisted of uranium and uranium oxide in a cubic lattice embedded in graphite.

Ernest O. Lawrence, Fermi, and Isidor Isaac Rabi

The FERMIAC, an analog computer invented by Fermi to study neutron transport

Laura and Enrico Fermi at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, Los Alamos, 1954

Memorial plaque in the Basilica Santa Croce, Florence. Italy

At Los Alamos, he headed F Division, part of which worked on Edward Teller's thermonuclear "Super" bomb.

He also liked to spend a few weeks of each year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he collaborated with Nicholas Metropolis, and with John von Neumann on Rayleigh–Taylor instability, the science of what occurs at the border between two fluids of different densities.

Along with Stanislaw Ulam, he calculated that not only would the amount of tritium needed for Teller's model of a thermonuclear weapon be prohibitive, but a fusion reaction could still not be assured to propagate even with this large quantity of tritium.