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Tag Archives: uranium

Book of the Week — A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United Stated Governement

07 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Albert Einstein, Army Corps of Engineers, atomic energy, electromagnetism, fission, Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Leslie R. Groves, Henry De Wolf Smyth, Hiroshima, isotopes, Japan, Manhattan Project, Metallurgical Laboratory, military, Nagasaki, neutrons, nuclear weapon, physics, Princeton, science, Smyth Report, United States, United States War Department, University of Chicago, uranium, war, weapons

UF767-S52-1945-cover

“These questions are not technical questions; they are political and social questions, and the answers given to them may affect all mankind for generations. In thinking about them the men on the project have been thinking as citizens of the United States vitally interested in the welfare of the human race. It has been their duty and that of the responsible high government officials who were informed to look beyond the limits of the present war and its weapons to the ultimate implications of these discoveries. This was a heavy responsibility. In a free country like ours, such questions should be debated by the people and decisions must be made by the people through their representatives. This is one reason for the release of this report. It is a semi-technical report which it is hoped men of science in this country can use to help their fellow citizens in reaching wise decisions. The people of the country must be informed if they are to discharge their responsibilities wisely”
— Henry De Wolf Smyth

A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS OF USING ATOMIC ENERGY FOR MILITARY PURPOSES UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, 1940-1945
Henry De Wolf Smyth (1898- 1986)
Washington, D. C: U. S. Govt. Print. Off., 1945
First edition

On August 6, 1945 the United States government dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. One week later, after a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, the United States War Department issued an official account of the Manhattan Project which produced the bombs, written by Princeton physicist Henry D. Smyth.

The program to develop a nuclear weapon had its origins in 1939, when a group of scientists, including Albert Einstein, apprised President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the vast destructive power that could be unleashed by the recently-discovered fission of uranium. By mid-1942 a top-secret program had been instituted under the Army Corps of Engineers’ Manhattan District. Smyth’s involvement began with his research at Princeton, where he headed the physics department, on electromagnetic methods of separating uranium isotopes. In 1943 he was appointed associate director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, working on the production of the heavy water needed to regulate the speed of neutrons in a chain reaction.

In April 1944 General Leslie R. Groves, chief of the Manhattan Project, asked Smyth to prepare a report on the project for release after the expected deployment of the bomb. The press release became known simply as the “Smyth Report.”

UF767-S52-1945-foreword

UF767-S52-1945-preface

UF767-S52-1945-pg165

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Marie Curie — The Poster and Rare Books

02 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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atmosphere, atomic, chemistry, Continuum, diagrams, frontispiece, Gauthier-Villars, Henri Becquerel, marbled boards, marbled endpapers, Marie Curie, Marie Sklodwaska Curie (1867-1934), math, Nobel Prize, Paris, physics, Pierre Curie, polonium, protrait, radiation, radioactivity, radium, Sorbonne, sun, Thatcher Building of Biological and Biophysical Chemistry, The University of Utah, thorium, uranium, Utah, women

Continuum, The Magazine of the University of Utah features The Curie Poster.

“In the southwest corner of the University of Utah’s Thatcher Building for Biological and Biophysical Chemistry, The Curie Poster is displayed as a tribute to Utah women in chemistry.”

Read the Continuum article

Curie-Wall-Mosaic

Visit the poster in the Thatcher Building for Biological and Biophysical Chemistry.

Hold the first edition of Marie Curie’s Traite de Radioactivite, Paris, 1910, in Rare Books.

QC721-C98-1910-v.1-title

Traite de Radioactivite
Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1910
First edition
QC721 C98 1910

Marie Sklodowaska Curie received degrees in math and physics in Paris. She earned her doctorate in 1903. Her husband, Pierre, a professor of physics, became involved in her research. They, along with Henri Becquerel, were awarded a Nobel Prize in physics for their work that same year. In 1906, after the death of her husband, she was offered his chair in physics at the Sorbonne. In 1911 she was awarded a second Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Traite is Curie’s fullest statement on radioactivity, a word she created for a concept that she invented and defined. Henri Becquerel discovered of a type of radiation discharged from a uranium compound that was capable of passing through sheets of matter opaque to ordinary light. Curie then began a systematic examination of a large number of chemical elements and their compounds to test whether they possessed the “radioactive” property of uranium. Only one other element, thorium, was found to show this effect to a degree comparable with that of uranium.

After testing the various compounds of uranium, Curie discovered that radioactivity was an atomic property, i.e., the activity was proportional to the amount of uranium present and was independent of its combination with other substances. In trying to isolate this radioactive property from the compounds, Curie isolated the new elements polonium and radium.

In Traite she provided a detailed review of discoveries she made and confirmed the connection between matter and electricity. The first volume contains detailed descriptions of how she measured radiation, with numerous text illustrations of the instruments. In the second volume, Curie discussed the nature of radiation, the heat and various phenomena associated with radiation and the varieties of radioactive substances. The final chapter concerns radiations of the sun and atmosphere.

With a frontispiece portrait of Pierre Curie, seven plates, five of which are photographic, and nearly two hundred diagrams. Bound in contemporary three-quarter brown cloth with green morocco spine label and marbled boards and endpapers.

alluNeedSingleLine

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