Fat Man and Little Boy Page #2

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I'm only gonna say it once.

Those of you who know, know.

Those of you who don't, don't.

You are not here to be comfortable.

All right?

You are here

to go beyond the theoretical,

the speculative, the fanciful.

You are here to harness

your God-given talents,

your minds, your energy,

in the practical pursuit of one thing:

A military weapon.

Nuclear one.

An atomic bomb.

Keep the muttering

to just a minimum, gentlemen.

Why bother with a bomb?

Why not just drop that man on Berlin?

- When you talk about it...

- It will have the same effect.

...it will be referred to as ''the gadget''

or ''the device''.

Is that clear?

There is one word

that I don't wanna hear.

And that's the word ''impossible''.

- You're two days late.

- I went to 109 East Palace Street

to report to Mrs. McKibben,

but there was nobody there.

So I hopped a construction bus, and it

damn near drove me back to Chicago.

I've been sitting on trains, buses,

railway stations for 60 hours.

I asked about this place in Santa Fe,

and they said it didn't exist.

It doesn't.

So where does a fellow

get some chow around here, huh?

- We already ate.

- Oh, great.

Oh, if you wanna take a shower,

I'd take one now.

They turn off the water at 2:00.

Keep those two men back there.

We still gotta run the power through.

Yeah, you two men there!

Higher! A little more.

All right, that'll do it.

Open this door, now!

Sorry. I couldn't get in.

Give it a month, you'll do that

because you can't get out.

- You Merriman?

- Yeah.

Richard Schoenfield.

I'm the doctor around here.

You're just what I'm looking for

in a roommate, a little brute strength.

Holy sh*t!

- What in God's name is this?

- It looks like a fridge.

Oh, yeah, it does.

It looks stuck.

I guess you arrived just in time then.

Thank God you're here.

Which end would you like?

Are you ready?

- You want me to get it myself?

- Lift.

Oppie's boys.

No problem left unsolved.

Gentlemen, this project

has been separated into three areas.

The physics.

How much material do we need?

Should it be plutonium

or uranium 235?

Second, manufacture of material,

but that's out of our hands.

That's Oak Ridge, Tennessee

and Hanford. And third,

our responsibility,

and this is a cinch...

Yeah, sure.

...build the device, test it,

and just hope that we can control it.

Gentlemen, we are here...

...at the beginning.

Our objective is here.

We have a deadline of 19 months.

It seems such a short time.

with our anticipated delivery date

from Oak Ridge. Gentlemen,

we have 19 months, that's it...

...to box, wrap

and deliver this package.

Are there any dissenters?

No?

Good.

Nineteen months

and starting from scratch, Jesus.

Still, Oppie's got the best theoreticians

and engineers in the world.

Some of these guys are legends and

so young. The place is a hothouse.

Doc, he seems like

he's gonna be a good man.

Reckons we'll be working with funny

stuff. He's gonna be looking out for us.

He's got a whole wing of the hospital

that looks like Noah's Ark.

I think of Jimmy fighting in the

Philippines, and I can't complain.

I love you, but I gotta go.

General wants a progress report.

When Groves wants something,

he wants it now.

Again.

We build a cannon, and at the end

weld a stopper

made from a subcritical mass.

We fabricate a shell

made from another subcritical mass

and fire it down the barrel.

- How much of both materials?

- Projecting 30 pounds.

as the moon.

We're trying to tap the energy

that fuels the universe.

It's petrifying. All we've got

so far are problems,

and that doesn't include the ones

we haven't thought about.

Shake down the bad news.

I'm getting used to it.

At the moment, there are

two problems. Pre-detonation.

The gadget disintegrates

before it explodes.

Second, it's the weight problem.

For the slug to travel at the velocity

we need,

the gun barrel

would be so heavy, so thick,

I don't think we'd get the gadget

off the ground with a crane.

If they're talking about a slug

with a seven-inch diameter,

then you'd have to have a barrel

thickness of at least four inches.

I hope you guys find the music.

The way things are,

we can't even hum the tune.

Free discussion.

Two groups...

- I'm not comfortable with...

- Excuse me.

Seth, Deke, the gun barrel.

Robert, Michael, pre-detonation.

Damn it! Just, damn it!

Maybe it's the altitude.

But we're still just chalk

on a blackboard.

We're dead in the water.

Maybe we cast a lighter

gun barrel, find a new alloy.

The force would be too great.

We gotta smack these atoms together

to trigger a chain reaction.

We gotta concentrate the energy

and crush the mass.

All right, let's rethink this.

We have a gun barrel that's so heavy

we can't lift it with a plane.

To get the explosive power we need,

it's gotta be heavy.

Michael, come here!

When I squeeze this...

- ...what do I get?

- Juice.

No. I squeeze it, I get compression.

We get a hollow sphere

of plutonium,

and we compress it

with an explosion that goes in.

- An implosion.

- Chain reaction.

Boom!

- But, Seth, explosives go out.

- I know.

But we make one that goes in.

Jesus.

- Michael.

- Let's get the boys.

We'll meet down here in the canteen.

It's brilliant. The device is gonna be so

light that we don't need a gun barrel!

Got a match, soldier?

Sir, it's Michael and Seth!

I'm sorry to bother you.

But Seth had an idea.

He was thinking of an orange.

Yes, I was thinking of jumping

up and down on an orange.

- Crushing an orange.

- Crushing!

Crushing...the core.

Oh, God.

This could be very sweet.

- Where are the others?

- Canteen, they wanna kick it around.

- Perhaps it can wait till later?

- No, you go ahead.

- I'd have lost you anyway.

- Thank you.

Goddamn it.

Doctor!

- Come on!

- Double up, over here!

I'm sorry. We were looking for testing

sites and the bus got stuck.

You had a meeting last night.

You discussed the work in public.

We were discussing

Neddermeyer's...

- In public!

- A table in the back of the canteen.

- We were having a free discussion.

- Let's just talk about that.

I don't want free discussion.

I want compartmentalization.

I don't want theoreticians

knowing what engineers know.

- Listen to me...

- It is a security problem!

These kids are used to pinning

their best ideas on a board.

Ideas are community property.

It's a matter of principle.

You force my hand and there

won't be any free discussion

because there won't be anybody left

to have it!

If you'd been there you'd understand.

Neddermeyer's idea was brilliant.

An explosion that goes inwards,

producing uniform compression

in a core and it'd be lightweight.

No gun barrel,

no velocity and weight problem.

And all of that

out of free discussion.

You've got to give us room

to breathe.

- Bronson?

- Sir?

Just don't give it to the waitresses.

Oppie's quite a match

for the general.

I'm worried it's not in Groves' nature

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