[BryanP]

This is a fascinating little bit of history. The real payoff is in the last few paragraphs. On topic if you consider The Big One to be a kind of firearm. I've noticed a few SF fans (this touches on Heinlein, for one) besides myself hang out on this board.

http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0310/ref.shtml

[Don Gwinn]

Thanks, Bryan. Fascinating stuff!

[Mal H]

Yes indeed, fascinating! Except for the "Radium shoots neutrons ..." statement.

[BryanP]

Yes indeed, fascinating! Except for the "Radium shoots neutrons ..." statement.

You have to keep in mind that this is pre-fission science fiction. There were a lot of theories but nobody actually KNEW what would happen. One of the outside theories was that the first time they did it the reaction would runaway and destroy the planet.

One of my favorite pre-bomb stories by Robert A. Heinlein is "Blowups Happen." It's a perfect example of reasonable extrapolation from what was then known, but it was wrong.

And hey, they had enough facts right that the Feds were investigating them with the idea that there had to be a leak somewhere.

[bad_dad_brad]

The U-235 gun bomb's design concept was pretty much known among the world of physics pre-WWII and so to read it in the science fiction of the time is not unusual. Everyone (scientists that is) knew it would work, it was just a matter of how efficient the bomb could be made vis-a-vis the amount of U-235 needed - and keeping the critical mass chain reaction contained as long as possible to get the most bang for the buck. This gadget was a sure thing, so much so, that it did not need to be tested, and the first U-235 gun bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

Of course, the real technical challenge was how to extract enough U-235 from U-238. That was huge for the time. Huge, and accounted for most of the Manhattan Project's cost. There were vast factories created to extract U-235 from U-238, a few atoms at a time.

I don't think any science fiction story explained how the Plutonium implosion bomb would work. That was a big secret. There was plenty of Plutonium available at the time, but the challenge was how to force critical mass of this element - much more difficult an engineering task than the U-235 gun bomb. That was the design tested at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and subsequently dropped on Nagasaki.

Read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes - 1995 Simon & Schuster, for a fascinating look on the Manhattan Project and the design of these weapons.

[NukemJim]

The "Venus Equilatoral " (SP?) SF article series had in it a story where when attempting to devolop a "Electron Cannon" they mentioned and discarded the idea of using a "Neuton Cannon" due to the pressence of fissionable uranium present in the space station where the series took place. I believe this story was pre-bomb as well.

Science Fiction AND guns. It's a wonderful thing

NukemJim

[Chipperman]

Someone set us up the bomb! :D