Los Alamos Primer

The Los Alamos Primer was composed from five lectures given by the physicist Robert Serber to the newcomers at the Los Alamos Laboratory in April 1943, at the start of the Manhattan Project. The aim of the project was to build the first nuclear bomb, and these lectures were a very concise introduction into the principles of nuclear weapon design. Serber was a postdoctoral student of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Los Alamos Laboratory, and worked with him on the project from the very start. The five lectures were conducted at April 5, 7, 9, 12, and 14, 1943; according to Serber, between 30 and 50 people attended them. Notes were taken by Edward Condon; the Primer is just 24-pages-long. Only 36 copies were printed at the time. Serber later described the lectures: Previously the people working at the separate universities had no idea of the whole story. They only knew what part they were working on. So somebody had to give them the picture of what it was all about and what the bomb was like, what was known about the theory, and some idea why they needed the various experimental numbers. In July 1942, Oppenheimer had held a "conference" at his office at Berkeley. No records were preserved, but the Primer arose from all the aspects of bomb design discussed there. == Content ==

The Primer, though only 24 pages long, consists of 22 sections, divided into chapters: The Primer became designated as the first official Los Alamos technical report (LA-1), and though its information about the physics of fission and weapon design was soon rendered obsolete, it is still considered a fundamental historical document in the history of nuclear weapons. Its contents would be of little use today to someone attempting to build a nuclear weapon, a fact acknowledged by its complete declassification in 1965. In 1992, an edited version of the Primer with many annotations and explanations by Serber was published with an introduction by Richard Rhodes, who previously published The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The 1992 edition also contains the Frisch–Peierls memorandum, written in 1940 in England. == Reception ==

The physicist Freeman Dyson, who knew Serber, Oppenheimer, and other participants of the Manhattan Project, called the Primer a "legendary document in the literature of nuclear weapons". He praised "Serber's clear thinking", but harshly criticized the Primers publication, writing "I still wish that it had been allowed to languish in obscurity for another century or two." Acknowledging that it was unclassified in 1965, and that it can't be useful to any bomb designer from 1950, Dyson still thinks that such publication can be dangerous: There is nothing here that would have been technically useful to a Russian bomb designer in 1950 or to an Iraqi bomb designer in 1990. But the primer contains much more than technical information. It conveys a powerful message that bomb designing is fun. The primer succeeds all too well in recreating the Los Alamos mystique, the picture of this brilliant group of city slickers suddenly dumped into the remotest corner of the Wild West and having the best time of their lives building bombs. It helps to perpetuate the myth. ... This is what I mean by seduction-the myth, unfortunately containing an element of truth, that building bombs is a wild, consciousness-raising adventure. Dyson compared bomb-building with LSD synthesis: "Nuclear weapons and LSD are both highly addictive. Both have been manufactured extensively by bright young people seduced by a myth and searching for adventure. Both have destroyed many lives and are likely to destroy many more if the myths are not dispelled. ... Books that present either LSD or nuclear bombs as a romantic adventure can be a danger to public health and safety." Paul W. Henriksen praised the book, writing that "one will be even more impressed with the magnitude of the effort to build an atomic bomb to try to end World War II". He notes that the "annotated version is fascinating in several respects. It is a rare instance in which one of the contributors to a historical event has gone back and explained his work, its importance, and the mistakes that were made at the same time." He also notes that the book is "one of the few books to deal at all with the technical side of the bomb project." Matthew Hersch writes that the book has "power to amaze", and that "The Los Alamos Primer is a work bound to be read differently by different generations ... [it] is a rich text that peers into a moment of innovation that had global consequences." Frank A. Settle also finds the primer to be unique in style and context, and sees it as "a significant contribution to the technical and scientific history of this important period." ==Publication history==

Articles • • Editions • • Original • == References ==