81 years ago today... the ultimate FAFO day

[EricStratton-RushChairman]

I may have posted this before, but my wife's Dad was pushed through ND and then MIT with Masters (Chem Eng.) in 1943. He then packed up his young wife and headed to Oakridge to work on The Manhattan Project. He had passed away by the time I met my wife so I never was able to speak with him about it. However, my wife always said he was highly conflicted once he eventually found out what he was working on (he didn't know until after Hiroshima bombing).

I visited Ground Zero and the memorial in Hiroshima back in 2016 and thought the Japanese do a fairly good job presenting their role in WW2 and the background to the use of atomic bombs. It was a little weird walking through the memorial/museum while group of grade school kids taking tours and all looking at me funny.

 

[Midnighter]

I may have posted this before, but my wife's Dad was pushed through ND and then MIT with Masters (Chem Eng.) in 1943. He then packed up his young wife and headed to Oakridge to work on The Manhattan Project. He had passed away by the time I met my wife so I never was able to speak with him about it. However, my wife always said he was highly conflicted once he eventually found out what he was working on (he didn't know until after Hiroshima bombing).

I visited Ground Zero and the memorial in Hiroshima back in 2016 and thought the Japanese do a fairly good job presenting their role in WW2 and the background to the use of atomic bombs. It was a little weird walking through the memorial/museum while group of grade school kids taking tours and all looking at me funny.


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LIved in Japan for three years and the closest big city was Hiroshima. The memorial there is very humbling. Really amazing story - thanks for sharing.

'Effective service'.....

 

[PSU89er]

I visited Ground Zero and the memorial in Hiroshima back in 2016 and thought the Japanese do a fairly good job presenting their role in WW2 and the background to the use of atomic bombs.

Really, because everything I've ever read or heard is that the Japanese did everything to not present how WW2 went down. Like until the advent of the internet they never taught in school that the japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They basically taught in school that the US being an imperalistic power came across the pacific and the Japanese fought back.

I've read that the Germans have always done a great job of educating their people of what Hitler did and what he was and the damage he caused. The Japanese did the exact opposite. What Japan was doing in the 1930's in China and Korea isn't something that you would want people to know about. Keep in mind, in the Shito religion. Hirohito was considered a living god prior to ww2. You are not going to acknowledge that someone deemed as a deity was in charge of absolute human atrocities for 20 years. Because he was viewed this way by the people of Japan saved his life. US military figure that putting him on trial for war crimes would cause a massive outbreak of guerrilla warfare throughout Japan. The war around Japan would never stop.

 

[EricStratton-RushChairman]

Really, because everything I've ever read or heard is that the Japanese did everything to not present how WW2 went down. Like until the advent of the internet they never taught in school that the japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. They basically taught in school that the US being an imperalistic power came across the pacific and the Japanese fought back.

I've read that the Germans have always done a great job of educating their people of what Hitler did and what he was and the damage he caused. The Japanese did the exact opposite. What Japan was doing in the 1930's in China and Korea isn't something that you would want people to know about. Keep in mind, in the Shito religion. Hirohito was considered a living god prior to ww2. You are not going to acknowledge that someone deemed as a deity was in charge of absolute human atrocities for 20 years. Because he was viewed this way by the people of Japan saved his life. US military figure that putting him on trial for war crimes would cause a massive outbreak of guerrilla warfare throughout Japan. The war around Japan would never stop.

I was speaking about the way they present everything at the actual memorial museum at ground zero in Hiroshima. The best book I ever read about how US prepared to occupy and rebuild Japan was The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.

 

[LionJim]

Apropos that I here take the opportunity to promote the go-to book on the Manhattan Program, The Making of the Atom Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. I cannot say enough about this book, gets deep into the science and the personalities. (Rutherford discovering that the atom had a positively charged nucleus is by itself worth the price of admission. And, the story of a crucial male-female coupling that fit just fine in the lab all of a sudden not fitting right smack dab in the middle of the Trinity Test countdown, dang.) I’m your friend. Have I ever lead you wrong? Get the book.

 

[Steve JG]

I may have posted this before, but my wife's Dad was pushed through ND and then MIT with Masters (Chem Eng.) in 1943. He then packed up his young wife and headed to Oakridge to work on The Manhattan Project. He had passed away by the time I met my wife so I never was able to speak with him about it. However, my wife always said he was highly conflicted once he eventually found out what he was working on (he didn't know until after Hiroshima bombing).

I visited Ground Zero and the memorial in Hiroshima back in 2016 and thought the Japanese do a fairly good job presenting their role in WW2 and the background to the use of atomic bombs. It was a little weird walking through the memorial/museum while group of grade school kids taking tours and all looking at me funny.


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The Atomic Bomb museum in Las Vegas is a very interesting and surprisingly engaging experience Worth doing if you find yourself in Vegas

 

[LafayetteBear]

Apropos that I here take the opportunity to promote the go-to book on the Manhattan Program, The Making of the Atom Bomb, by Richard Rhodes. I cannot say enough about this book, gets deep into the science and the personalities. (Rutherford discovering that the atom had a positively charged nucleus is by itself worth the price of admission. And, the story of a crucial male-female coupling that fit just fine in the lab all of a sudden not fitting right smack dab in the middle of the Trinity Test countdown, dang.) I’m your friend. Have I ever lead you wrong? Get the book.

When did we ever suggest that we did not consider you our friend?

 

[DELion]

Chemical engineers played a large role in the Manhattan Project. In 1942, the government approached DuPont to assist with the effort. But at the time, there was public sentiment that DuPont was profiteering from wars so the company was reluctant to sign on. They eventually agreed to provide assistance with the caveat that their compensation would be $1. The company was the primary contractor in design and construction of facilities at both Oak Ridge and Hanford.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/manhattan-project-spotlight-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-company/

 

[Aardvark86]

Chemical engineers played a large role in the Manhattan Project. In 1942, the government approached DuPont to assist with the effort. But at the time, there was public sentiment that DuPont was profiteering from wars so the company was reluctant to sign on. They eventually agreed to provide assistance with the caveat that their compensation would be $1. The company was the primary contractor in design and construction of facilities at both Oak Ridge and Hanford.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/manhattan-project-spotlight-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-company/

And a key guy working on that reactor development with DuPont was dr John wheeler, who I met some years ago and whose cabin I will visit in Maine this fall.

out of curiosity, how many of you have read bronowski’s science and human values? My sense is it’s not required for younger generations any more. The intro on his trip to Nagasaki is one of the better openers you’ll find.

 

[razpsu]

I may have posted this before, but my wife's Dad was pushed through ND and then MIT with Masters (Chem Eng.) in 1943. He then packed up his young wife and headed to Oakridge to work on The Manhattan Project. He had passed away by the time I met my wife so I never was able to speak with him about it. However, my wife always said he was highly conflicted once he eventually found out what he was working on (he didn't know until after Hiroshima bombing).

I visited Ground Zero and the memorial in Hiroshima back in 2016 and thought the Japanese do a fairly good job presenting their role in WW2 and the background to the use of atomic bombs. It was a little weird walking through the memorial/museum while group of grade school kids taking tours and all looking at me funny.


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Your dad saved thousands if not millions of lives. God bless him. My nephew is at los alamos working on nuclear stuff way above my pay grade. Think his team just had a major break through.
For a few trillionths of a second in June 2025, a tiny capsule of fusion fuel—a mix of deuterium and tritium gases—just 2 millimeters across, burned at nearly 260 million degrees Fahrenheit—about 10 times hotter than the core of the sun. “During this brief time frame, our experiment was the hottest point in the solar system,” says physicist R… l….., who was among the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists who conducted the experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

 

[Grant Green]

Chemical engineers played a large role in the Manhattan Project. In 1942, the government approached DuPont to assist with the effort. But at the time, there was public sentiment that DuPont was profiteering from wars so the company was reluctant to sign on. They eventually agreed to provide assistance with the caveat that their compensation would be $1. The company was the primary contractor in design and construction of facilities at both Oak Ridge and Hanford.

https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/manhattan-project-spotlight-ei-du-pont-de-nemours-company/

DuPont had been profiteering from just about every significant American conflict and beyond. Its how they built the company.

slight clarification. Compensation was $1 of profit. All expenses were included.

 

[Aardvark86]

DuPont had been profiteering from just about every significant American conflict and beyond. Its how they built the company.

slight clarification. Compensation was $1 of profit. All expenses were included.

Weeeeeelllll… when you make explosives, you make a certain amount of profit from conflict

 

[Grant Green]

Weeeeeelllll… when you make explosives, you make a certain amount of profit from conflict

And use money and connections to promote entry into conflicts. Includes Henry DuPont who was a US senator and chairman of the committee on expenditures in the military affairs department. He was a big fan of entry into WWI.