Heavy Water and the Wartime Race for Nuclear Energy 9780750306331, 0750306335

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
1 Prologue
1.1 Fornebu airport, 12 March 1940
2 Manchester and Paris, 1919
2.1 Manchester: How it Began
2.2 Paris, and the Joliot-Curies
3 The Neutron
3.1 Prelude to 1932: Chadwick and Bothe on the Hunt
3.2 A Discovery Narrowly Missed, and the Neutron at Last
4 Heavy Water
4.1 Deuterium: A Comedy of Errors
4.2 Gilbert Lewis and Leif Tronstad: The Promise of Deuterium
4.3 Birkeland and His Gun; Eyde and Birkeland
4.4 Tronstad and Norsk Hydro: An Auspicious Union
5 Artificial Radioactivity
5.1 Another French miss, and Triumph at Last
5.2 Rome: Another Discovery, and a Discovery Missed
5.3 Meanwhile, Back in Paris
5.4 Escape, in the Nick of Time
6 Nuclear Fission
6.1 Berlin: December 1938
6.2 More Neutrons?
6.3 Prospects for a Chain Reaction on the Eve of War
6.4 A Moderator of Choice
7 Heavy Water Revisited
7.1 The Allier Mission
7.2 Attack on Norway
7.3 The battle for Rjukan; Tronstad goes into Action
8 The British Initiative
8.1 MAUD
8.2 Broompark
9 German Army Ordnance Takes Charge
9.1 The Uranium Club; A Tritium Episode
9.2 A Serious Error
9.3 Joliot’s Guests
10 Heavy Water Takes Center Stage
10.1 Pressure on Norsk Hydro Mounts
10.2 SIS, SOE, and the Galtesund Affair
10.3 Mild Sabotage; Frank Talk
10.4 Exit Jomar Brun
11 America Joins the Quest
11.1 Stirrings in the New World
11.2 ‘Graphite Versus Deuterium’ once More
11.3 North American heavy water in Abundance
12 Action Vemork
12.1 Germany’s Uranium Machines: Off to a Promising Start
12.2 Freshman: An Unqualified Disaster
12.3 Gunnerside: A Qualified Success
13 Neutrons Despite Bombs
13.1 Aftermath at Vemork; Neutrons in Berlin-Gottow
13.2 The Americans strike
14 Wavering Outlook for Heavy Water
14.1 Penultimate Pile Experiments
14.2 The Ferry
14.3 Prospects for Heavy-Water Production in Germany
15 Canada Enters the Race
15.1 Zeep
16 Fears and Facts on the Continent
16.1 Alsos
16.2 In the Haigerloch Cave
17 Swabian Jura and Upper Telemark: Final Events
17.1 The Rush for Haigerloch
17.2 Interrupted Sunshine
18 Hiroshima Revealed; Further Contestants for Nuclear Energy
18.1 Farm Hall: Operation Epsilon
18.2 Belated Entries: Russia and Japan
19 Epilogue
19.1 Whither Heavy Water; What If?
19.2 A Few of the Personalities
Appendix A: Some Properties of Heavy Water (D[sub(2)]O) Compared To Water (H[sub(2)]O)
Appendix B: A Chronology of Heavy Water
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index