The box-shaped block of uranium was sent to Professor Koeth with the message: “Taken from Germany, from the nuclear reactor that Hitler sought to build. Ninninger’s gift”. The professor was very surprised and delighted.
The block of uranium is box-shaped, each side is nearly 5cm long. (Photo: Physics Today).
“I immediately understood what it was,” Professor Koeth, a collector of nuclear artifacts, said of the mysterious dark matter. But first, he needed to verify the source of the uranium to see if it was really from Hitler’s failed nuclear reactor project in the past.
Professor Koeth set up a research team with her doctoral thesis defense student Miriam Hiebert to verify the origin of the strange mass. In their research, Professor and Hieber discovered the surprising conclusion that Germany could have actually built a nuclear reactor during the Second World War even if the mission was completed. of separate research teams influenced the program’s success. These findings were presented by him and his colleagues in the May 2019 issue of the journal Physics Today.
According to Professor Koeth’s research, during the closing stages of World War II, Nazi scientists managed to build a nuclear reactor codenamed B-VIII in Berlin, which was later moved to small town Haigerloch to continue to complete.
The Nazi laboratory was quite small, underneath a church in the town of Haigerloch, which was a converted beer and potato cellar. Today, the ruins of this underground facility, known as the Atomkeller Museum, are open daily to visitors.
Hundreds of uranium masses are clustered. (Photo: Physics Today).
There are 664 cubes of uranium, each 5cm long, like the one sent to Professor Koeth, and all hung together like a chandelier. These uranium blocks are located at the core of the B-VIII reactor, the outside is a metal-coated graphite shell. This shell was later determined to be inside a large concrete water tank.
At the center of the cubic lattice of uranium is a radioactive source of neutrons. When neutrons bombard the uranium-235 atoms in the box, the atoms split, releasing enormous energy and three times as many neutrons.
This huge amount of newly produced neutrons will then split and continue to bombard more uranium atoms, thus creating a chain reaction. This nuclear reaction produces millions of times more energy than any other chemical reaction. The energy from the nuclear chain reaction can be used to turn water into steam, power turbines and produce electricity.
“This experiment was the last attempt by the Nazis to build a nuclear reactor. But there isn’t enough uranium at the core for them to achieve that goal,” said Professor Koeth, “To achieve the level of uranium concentration needed for a nuclear reactor, Germany needs about half as much extra uranium. such”.
The Nazi nuclear facility in Haigerloch is now a Museum. (Image: Wikimedia Commons).
Although up to 664 uranium cubes were concentrated at Haigerloch, the researchers were surprised to discover about 400 other cubes of uranium at that time were also brought to Germany and owned by the Gottow research organization. . They suggest that if gathered and managed by the same place, German scientists might have enough uranium to make the Haigerloch reactor work.
“If the Germans had pooled their resources, instead of having them shared by different research rivals, they could have built a working nuclear reactor,” Ms. Hiebert said.
“The German nuclear program is divided and competitive despite being under General Leslie Groves, while the American Manhattan Project has focus and cooperation,” Ms. Hiebert said. However, there are still many other factors that affect the success of the program. “Even if the other 400 blocks of uranium were sent to Haigerloch to be used in a nuclear reaction experiment, German scientists would still need more heavy water to make the reactor work,” Professor Koeth said.
The Allies blew up the Nazi heavy water production facility inside the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant in Telemark, Norway in 1943. Then the Norwegian resistance forces scuttled the ship carrying all of it. the remaining heavy water reserves while being transported to Germany.
Scientist working on Hitler’s nuclear project, Werner Heisenberg. (Image: Getty Images).
“As the birthplace of nuclear physicists and almost two years ahead of the Americans, the danger of a nuclear Germany at the end of the war was about to materialize,” said Professor Koethe.
Among the German scientists who worked on Hitler’s nuclear project was Werner Heisenberg, a theoretical physicist once known for developing the field of electromechanics. The Allied forces captured Heisenberg alive in 1945, while the reactor was dismantled by the US military. 664 cubes of uranium were transported to an undisclosed location in the US. As for the fate of 400 uranium blocks in Germany, they are said to have been dumped on the black market after the war and most of them have gone missing.
The name Nininger on the note attached to the uranium block to Professor Koeth refers to Robert Nininger, an expert working on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb for the United States. According to Mr. Nininger’s widow, the late scientist once owned a piece of uranium before giving it to a friend. “Despite what we know about the uranium block, we still don’t have an answer as to how it got to Maryland 70 years after it was taken by the Allies from southern Germany,” said Miriam Hiebert.
To date, researchers have located 10 other uranium masses, one of which turns out to be kept by Harvard University, while another is located at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Nazi uranium blocks are kept at Harvard University. (Photo: Physics Today).
Professor Koeth has planned to lend his uranium block to a museum for display, while he and his research partner continue to search for the missing uranium. “We hope to tell as many people as possible, so that if anyone knows about these uranium blocks, they get in touch with the researchers, ” he urged.