Talk:Manhattan Project

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Frequently asked questions

Organization

Q1: Why are Canada and Britain listed in the infobox? Wasn't the Manhattan Project an all-American effort?

A1: No, the Manhattan Project was a multinational effort, controlled by the United States, Britain and Canada.

Q2: Weren't other countries involved? Why aren't they listed too?

A2: Other countries were involved. There were many individuals from many countries. Especially notable contributions were made by Niels Bohr (Denmark) and Marcus Oliphant (Australia). The flags in the infobox refer to the governance of the project, which was by the United States, Britain and Canada.

Q3: Is it worth noting that Canada had such a role?

A3: Yes. This had important consequences in the post-war period.

Q4: Wasn't Robert Oppenheimer the head of the Manhattan Project?

A4: No, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., was the director of the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory.

Q5: Wasn't Oppenheimer Groves' chief scientific advisor?

A5: No, Richard Tolman was Groves' chief scientific advisor. Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory.

Q6: Why is Kenneth Nichols listed as the commander of the Manhattan District? Wasn't Groves in command of the Manhattan District?

A6: No, Groves was director of the Manhattan Project; The Manhattan District was commanded by Colonel James C. Marshall until 1943, and then by Nichols.

Q7: Weren't the Manhattan Project and the Manhattan District the same thing?

A7: No, they were two separate entities. Check out the organization chart in the article.

Q8: Wasn't the sleeve patch worn only by WACs?

A8: No. have a look at the picture of the presentation of the Army–Navy "E" Award at Los Alamos on 16 October 1945. Nichols and Groves are wearing it.

Q9: Why is the district listed as participating in campaigns in the European theater?

A9: This refers to the activities of the Alsos Mission, which was part of the project.

Q10: And the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

A10: This refers to the activities of Project Alberta. Manhattan Project personnel, including Captain William S. Parsons were on board the aircraft which carried out the missions.

Other issues

Q11: I added something to the article but it got removed. Why?

A11: In all probability what you added was trivia, unsourced information or information cited to an unreliable source; such information is usually removed quickly because of the article's Featured Status. Articles on Wikipedia require reliable sources for an independent verification of the facts presented, consequently any information added to an article without a reliable source is subject to removal from the article at any Wikipedian's discretion.

Q12: I tried to edit this article but couldn't. Why?

A12:This article has been indefinitely semi-protected due to persistent vandalism or violations of content policy. Semi-protection prevents edits from anonymous users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not autoconfirmed (is at least four days old and has ten or more edits to Wikipedia) or confirmed. Such users can request edits to this article by proposing them on this talk page, using the {{editsemiprotected}} template if necessary to gain attention. They may also request the confirmed userright by visiting Requests for permissions.

Manhattan Project is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

Manhattan Project is the main article in the History of the Manhattan Project series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 16, 2013.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 11, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed
January 27, 2011	WikiProject A-class review	Not approved
March 18, 2011	WikiProject A-class review	Approved
August 23, 2011	Featured article candidate	Promoted
July 16, 2013	Today's featured article	Main Page
December 21, 2016	Good topic candidate	Not promoted
May 29, 2018	Featured topic candidate	Promoted
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on December 2, 2004, December 2, 2005, December 2, 2006, December 2, 2007, August 13, 2011, August 13, 2012, August 13, 2015, and August 13, 2017.
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With support from UK/Canada[edit]

The revision by Whizz40 on 20:59, 2 September 2023 is not referenced, POV, and incorrect. The original sentence read "It was led by the United States with support from the United Kingdom and Canada." which is more correct than their revision. 70.51.132.220 (talk) 04:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to "It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 3 April 2024[edit]

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‹ The template Edit semi-protected is being considered for merging. ›

Please add this section as is in regards to Teller's group contribution.

A special group was established under Teller in March 1944 to investigate the mathematics of an implosion-type nuclear weapon. Because of his interest in the Super, Teller did not work as hard on the implosion calculations as Bethe wanted. These too were originally low-priority tasks, but the discovery of spontaneous fission in plutonium by Emilio Segrè's group gave the implosion bomb increased importance. In June 1944, at Bethe's request, Oppenheimer moved Teller out of T Division, and placed him in charge of a special group responsible for the Super, reporting directly to Oppenheimer. He was replaced by Rudolf Peierls from the British Mission, who in turn brought in Klaus Fuchs, who was later revealed to be a Soviet spy. Teller's Super group became part of Fermi's F Division when he joined the Los Alamos Laboratory in September 1944. It included Stanislaw Ulam, Jane Roberg, Geoffrey Chew, Harold and Mary Argo, and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.[1]

REF:

Hoddeson, Lillian; Henriksen, Paul W.; Meade, Roger A.; Westfall, Catherine L. (1993). Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521441323. OCLC 26764320. 91.217.105.54 (talk) 22:53, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Y Added a paragraph on the Super. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project[edit]

I just read a great new page, "African-American scientists and technicians on the Manhattan Project," that should be linked to on this main page. Can someone add that link somewhere here? The page is protected, or I would do it myself. Thanks! ProfJsto (talk) 15:05, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done Added a sentence. It is also now in the template, so is present in all the Manhattan Project articles. One problem: the article says As a condition of funding the project, southern legislators required that it be segregated but neither of the cited sources support this sentence. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:02, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

thanks a lot! i didn't make this page, but I can check in on the sources and see what I find. ProfJsto (talk) 21:04, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I will delete the sentence for now. It can be reinstated if a source can be found. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 2 May 2024[edit]

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‹ The template Edit semi-protected is being considered for merging. ›

Within the article for the Manhattan project, the part about Uranium, more specifically about Gaseous Diffusion seems to have a grammatical mistake, I have put in bold what I think should be added for the sentence to make more sense grammatically speaking.

The process faced formidable technical difficulties. The highly corrosive gas uranium hexafluoride had to be used, as no substitute could be found, and the motors and pumps had to be vacuum tight and enclosed in inert gas. Think and Game (talk) 13:47, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done Funnyfarmofdoom (talk to me) 14:38, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification[edit]

Reading through the article I was confused by: “Briggs proposed spending $167,000 on research into uranium, particularly the uranium-235 isotope, and plutonium, which was discovered in 1940 at the University of California.”

and then later:

“The properties of pure uranium-235 were relatively unknown, as were those of plutonium, which had only been discovered in February 1941 by Glenn Seaborg and his team.”

In researching the source it appears clear that two seperate discoveries were made, the first being the actual substance, and the second being the subtance's properties. The first quote should be reconciled to the second and clarified by striking ~~those~~ and adding “the properties.” TheRealStang (talk) 20:27, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An error. They had evidence that Neptunium decayed to Plutonium, but Plutonium was not isolated until February 1941. I have corrected the text. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:52, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]