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 FEATURE

 

In 1993, the Laboratory celebrated its 50th anniversary

How did the Laboratory come to be located in Los Alamos? Who were the movers and shakers who created it? And how did a small group of people transplanted to a tiny, isolated community in the mountains of Northern New Mexico conceive of a weapon that would forever change history?

photo collage of historic figures

Atomic Bomb: Decision
Contains documents that led up to the decision to use the atomic bomb.


Bureau of Atomic Tourism

Describes tourist locations that have played a role in the history of nuclear weapons.

Fifty Years from Trinity
A series of articles from The Seattle Times.

Personal Record of Hiroshima A-bomb Survival

Photograph of Trinity

Richard Feynman
Contains links to information about and quotes by Richard Feynman.

Trinity: 50 Years Later
Stories from the Albuquerque Journal.



50th Anniversary Articles

  1. The pre-war years

  2. The Berkeley summer study

  3. Why was Los Alamos needed?

  4. Groves takes command, "We are in the soup!"

  5. Groves, scientists disagree over selection of director, Scientific nature of work needed

  6. Jemez Springs National Laboratory? Search for laboratory' site targets West

  7. Oppenheimer's better idea, Ranch School becomes arsenal of democracy

  8. "The Italian navigator has just landed in the New World," Secret race won with Chicago's chain reaction

  9. The Ranch School Closes Down

  10. Ranch School closes, "Buck Rogers Project" begins

  11. "Military Laboratory" evolves into academic outpost

  12. Oppenheimer and his staff arrive, The stakes were high and time was short

  13. New laboratory forged "the army way"

  14. New weapons laboratory gives birth to the "gadget"

  15. UC's first contract to operate the Laboratory

  16. Oversight Committee formed as Lab begins research

  17. "Here's your damned organization Chart"

  18. Plutonium complicates early gun work

  19. Emilio Segre' leads the research on spontaneous fission

  20. Experimenting with tanks and barns

  21. Implosion becomes the key to the key to the "gadget"

  22. Evolving from calculators to computers

  23. Scientists in uniform ­ the Special Engineering Detachment

  24. Trinity ­ Completion of the wartime mission

 


 RELATED LINKS

Bradbury Science Museum

Los Alamos Historical Society
 PHOTOS


Harold Agnew

Third Director of the Laboratory, with Emilio Segre


photo of Cowan

Clyde Cowan conducting experiment leading to the detection of free neutrino, ca 1956

photo of JFK and Ulam

President John F. Kennedy shaking hands with Stan Ulam, Los Alamos December 1962

photo of Teller and Bradbury

Edward Teller and Norris Bradbury, ca 1946


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Last Modified: Friday, 31-Jan-2003 15:27:36 MST
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