Here is a roundup of some of the most interesting content published on the Manhattan Project and science history in the past month.
–On the cusp of 112, a whirlwind tour for World War II’s oldest veteran: The Washington Post reports on Richard Overton, the grandson of a slave and the country’s oldest World War II veteran.
– Harvard and the Atomic Bomb : The Harvard Crimson describes James B. Conant’s involvement in the Manhattan Project; Tocsin, a nuclear disarmament group that was active at Harvard in the 1960s; and how students feel about nuclear issues today.
–J. Ernest Wilkins Jr.: ‘Superb Mathematician’ Broke Barriers at Dawn of Atomic Age: The Atlanta Black Star profiles African-American mathematician and physicist J. Ernest Wilkins, who was accepted to study math at the University of Chicago in 1937 when he was 13 years old. He went on to work on the Manhattan Project at Chicago and later served as the president of the American Nuclear Society.
– LANL Archives Preserve History: Deputy Group Leader for the Records Management Group Christopher C’de Baca and LANL Historian Alan Carr share with the Los Alamos Daily Post some of the documents associated with the Soviet spies at Los Alamos.
-Stephen Hawking Dies at 76; His Mind Roamed the Cosmos
On March 14, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking passed away. This New York Times obituary explores his extraordinary life and scientific discoveries.
–The Atomic-Bomb Core That Escaped World War II: The Atlantic explores the history of the “demon core,” which caused the deaths of Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin in separate criticality accidents.
–The birth of the atomic age in Berkeley: The University of California’s “One Bold Idea” podcast has a new episode on Ernest O. Lawrence and the development of the cyclotron.