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Thin Man (nuclear Bomb)
"Thin Man" was the code name for a proposed plutonium gun-type nuclear bomb that the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. Its development was abandoned when it was discovered that the spontaneous fission rate of nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type design due to the high concentration of the isotope plutonium-240. Early decisions In 1942, prior to the United States Army taking over control of wartime atomic research in what became known as the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June and Berkeley, California in July, at which physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues. A gun-type design was chosen, in which two sub-critical masses of plutonium would be brought together by firing a "bullet" into a "target". The idea of an implosion-type nuclear weapon was suggested by Richard Tolman, but it attracted scant consideration, being far more complex. Oppenheimer reviewed his options in early 1943 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seth Neddermeyer
Seth Henry Neddermeyer (September 16, 1907 – January 29, 1988) was an American physicist who co-discovered the muon, and later championed the Implosion-type nuclear weapon while working on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. Early life Seth Henry Neddermeyer was born in Richmond, Michigan, on September 16, 1907. He attended Olivet College, a small college that his mother, older sister, and uncle had also attended, for two years before his family moved to California. He transferred to Stanford University, from which received his Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree in 1929. His interest in physics was inspired by the work of Robert A. Millikan, and he enrolled in graduate school at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he wrote his 1935 PhD thesis on "The absorption of high energy electrons", under the supervision of Carl D. Anderson. He confirmed the theory espoused by Niels Bohr for this process. He also noted large radiative ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five UK Parliament constituency, constituencies. Ideologically an Economic liberalism, economic liberal and British Empire, imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to Spencer family, a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British Raj, Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the leader of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. He built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended in victory shortly after he died in office. Born into the prominent Roosevelt family in Hyde Park, New York, he graduated from both Groton School and Harvard College, and attended Columbia Law Scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pullman Car
In the United States, Pullman was used to refer to railroad sleeping cars that were built and operated on most U.S. railroads by the Pullman Company (founded by George Pullman) from 1867 to December 31, 1968. Other uses Pullman also refers to railway dining cars in Europe that were operated by the Pullman Company, or lounge cars operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Specifically, in Great Britain, ''Pullman'' refers to the lounge cars operated by the British Pullman Car Company. The nickname ''Pullman coach'' was used in some European cities for the first long (four-axle) electric tramcars whose appearance resembled the Pullman railway cars and that were usually more comfortable than their predecessors. Such coaches ( rus, пульмановский вагон, pul'manovsky vagon) ran in Kyiv from 1907 and in Odessa from 1912. In the 1920s, tramcars nicknamed ''Pullmanwagen'' in German ran in Leipzig, Cologne, Frankfurt and Zürich.Hans Bodmer. ''Das Tram in Z ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silverplate
Silverplate was the code reference for the United States Army Air Forces' participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Originally the name for the aircraft modification project which enabled a B-29 Superfortress bomber to drop an atomic weapon, "Silverplate" eventually came to identify the training and operational aspects of the program as well. The original directive for the project had as its subject line "Silver Plated Project" but continued usage of the term shortened it to "Silverplate". Testing began with scale models at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia, in August 1943. Modifications began on a prototype Silverplate B-29 known as the "Pullman" in November 1943, and it was used for bomb flight testing at Muroc Army Air Field in California commencing in March 1944. The testing resulted in further modifications to both the bombs and the aircraft. Seventeen production Silverplate aircraft were ordered in August 1944 to allow the 509th Composite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II (1941–1945). It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force, today one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States. The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which on 2 March 1942 was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed am ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces and Captain Robert A. Lewis. It exploded with an energy of approximately and caused widespread death and destruction throughout the city. The Hiroshima bombing was the second man-made nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity nuclear test. Little Boy was developed by Lieutenant Commander Francis Birch (geophysicist), Francis Birch's group at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, a reworking of their unsuccessful Thin Man (nuclear bomb), Thin Man nuclear bomb. Like Thin Man, it was a gun-type fission weapon, but it derived its explosive power from the nuclear fission of uranium-235, where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Maltese Falcon (1941 Film)
''The Maltese Falcon'' is a 1941 American film noir written and directed by John Huston in his directorial debut, based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and indebted to the 1931 movie of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his ''femme fatale'' client. Gladys George, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet co-star, with the last appearing in his film debut. The story follows a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three unscrupulous adventurers, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette. The film premiered in New York City on October 3, 1941, and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Considered one of the greatest films of all time, it was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress to be included in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is a part of Roger Ebert's series ''The Great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney Greenstreet
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (December 27, 1879 – January 18, 1954) was a British-American actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting through the 1940s. He is best remembered for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, including '' The Maltese Falcon'' (1941), ''Casablanca'' (1942), and ''Passage to Marseille'' (1944). He portrayed Nero Wolfe on radio during 1950 and 1951. He became a United States citizen in 1925. Early life Sidney Hughes Greenstreet was born on December 27, 1879, in Sandwich, Kent, the son of Ann (née Baker) and John Jarvis Greenstreet, a tanner. He had seven siblings. He left home at the age of 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business. He began managing a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. Career Greenstreet's stage debut was as a murderer in a 1902 production of a She ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Thin Man (film)
''The Thin Man'' is a 1934 American Pre-Code Hollywood, pre-Code comedy-mystery directed by W. S. Van Dyke and based on the 1934 The Thin Man, novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a leisure-class couple who enjoy copious drinking and flirtatious banter. Nick is a retired private detective who left his very successful career when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress accustomed to high society. Their Fox Terrier (Wire), wire-haired fox terrier Asta was played by canine actor Skippy (dog), Skippy. In 1997, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film's screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, a married couple. In 1934, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The titular "Thin Man" is not Nick Charles, but the man Charles is initially hired to find – Clyde Wynan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Thin Man
''The Thin Man'' (1934) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in a condensed version in the December 1933 issue of ''Redbook''. It appeared in book form the following month. A film series followed, featuring the main characters Nick and Nora Charles, and Hammett was hired to provide scripts for the first two. Plot The story is set in New York City during the Christmas season of 1932, in the last days of Prohibition in the United States. The main characters are Nick Charles, a former private detective, and Nora, his socialite wife. Nick, the son of a Greek immigrant, now spends most of his time in San Francisco managing his former father-in-law's businesses in between heavy drinking sessions. While in a New York speakeasy, Charles meets Dorothy, the now grown-up daughter of a former client, Clyde Wynant, who says she is trying to contact the father she has not seen since his divorce. Two days later, Nick sees a newspaper report of the shooting of Wynant' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
