DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ How a US government program advocated using nuclear explosions for construction, farming radioactive crops, and blasting holes in the moon
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-31 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Most focused on the potential for nuclear explosions to quickly excavate areas for construction projects at lower costs than conventional explosives. (Hamblin is the author of the book "The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology.") Fly the radioactive skiesUS officials also hoped nuclear energy could be used for transportation. Nicknamed the "pan-atomic canal," nuclear explosions would have carved a sea-level waterway through Nicaragua, Panama, or Colombia, per Forbes. Corbis via Getty ImagesFor Hamblin, the concept of "peaceful nuclear explosions" fell out of favor in the mid-70s.

Persons: Christopher Nolan's, Oppenheimer, Jacob Hamblin, Dwight D, Eisenhower, Alex Wellerstein, Hamblin, you've, Dr Leonard Reiffel, Alaska's Cape Thompson, Edward Teller, detonations, Rio, Iran —, —, Corbis, Wellerstein, Marshall, we're Organizations: Service, White, Nevada . U.S . Department of Energy Office, Scientific, Atomic Energy, UN, United Nations, IAEA Imagebank, United, US Atomic Energy Commission, Technology, Institute of Radiation, Google, NASA, Sputnik, Air Force, U.S . Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, AEC, of Energy, Popular Mechanics, New York Times, Carryall, US Department of Energy, Forbes, Atomic Energy Commission, Getty, IAEA Locations: Wall, Silicon, Suez, Nevada ., United Nations, New York, Hitachiomiya, Japan, Soviet Union, Nevada, Alaska's Cape, inconveniently, Israel, Panama, Nicaragua, Colombia, Pacific, Farmington , New Mexico, Rulison , Colorado, Rio Blanco, , Colorado, Iran, Mercury , Nevada, USA, Cuba, Vietnam, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada —, Marshall

☆ The FBI surveilled J. Robert Oppenheimer for months on one man's suggestion. During the surveillance, interviewees alleged he was feeding nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Sebastian Cahill | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The FBI watched J. Robert Oppenheimer for months after he helped make the WWII-ending atomic bomb. Reports from the FBI show Oppenheimer was accused of Communism and spreading information to Russia. During the investigation, though, Pitzer said he had new doubts about Oppenheimer's loyalty to the country, due to his initial reservations about the development of the H-bomb. The Atomic Heritage Foundation does consider Oppenheimer likely to have held communist sympathies, but maintains that information in the report was exaggerated. At the end of the inquest, Oppenheimer's top-level security clearances were revoked, a devastating blow to the scientist.

Persons: Robert Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer, J, Christopher Nolan's, Edgar Hoover, Lewis Strauss, Hoover, Strauss, Kenneth Pitzer, Pitzer, Ward Evans, Jean Tatlock, Bernard Peters, Oppenheimer's, Jennifer Granholm, Granholm, AHF Organizations: FBI, Congress, Service, US Atomic Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC, Loyola University , Chicago, Atomic Energy, German Communist Party, Atomic Heritage Foundation, USA, US, Department of Energy, DOE Locations: Russia, Wall, Silicon, Soviet Union, UC Berkeley's

☆ Moviegoers have spotted a blooper in ‘Oppenheimer’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Issy Ronald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

But eagle-eyed fans have spotted a mistake in a scene set in 1945, as Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer stands among a crowd waving American flags – bearing the wrong number of stars. Universal Pictures“It was good and all, but I’ll be that guy and complain they used 50-star flags in a scene set in 1945,” Twitter user Andy Craig wrote on Friday. In 1945, the American flag featured 48 stars, as Alaska and Hawaii hadn’t yet become US states. But in another scene set in the same year, the correct American flag flies behind Oppenheimer. “Barbie called this in didn’t she,” another Twitter user joked, referencing the fact that “Oppenheimer’s” release date coincided with Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.

Persons: Christopher Nolan’s, “ Oppenheimer, ”, J, Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, Andy Craig, Oppenheimer, McCarthy, “ Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s “ Barbie, ” “ Oppenheimer ”, Paul Dergarabedian, Dergarabedian Organizations: CNN, Universal, US Atomic Energy, Communist Party Locations: Alaska, Hawaii, didn’t

☆ The science you should understand before seeing 'Oppenheimer'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-22 | by ( Katie Hawkinson | Jenny Mcgrath | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Fission vs. fusionWhile fission and fusion are both key components of nuclear technology, the two processes are very different — and central to the plot of "Oppenheimer." The hydrogen bomb — promoted by Lewis Strauss, a member of the US Atomic Energy Commission — relies on fusion, making it far more powerful than the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer led a group of physicists who advocated for the United States to export radioactive isotopes to researchers abroad. However, Strauss pushed back while serving as chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission, advocating for a US monopoly on the materials. He argued that exporting them would be the equivalent of sharing nuclear information, an act forbidden by the 1946 Atomic Energy Act.

Persons: Christopher Nolan's, Oppenheimer, —, Earnest O, Lawrence, Radiochemists Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassman, Lise Meitner, Lewis Strauss, Strauss Organizations: Manhattan, Service, US Atomic Energy, US Atomic Energy Commission, 1946, Energy Locations: Wall, Silicon, Berlin, United States

☆ The US had a plan in the 1960s to blast an alternative Suez Canal through Israel using 520 nuclear bombs
▼ + stars: | 2021-03-25 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A declassified memorandum reveals a 1963 US plan to create an alternative to the Suez Canal. A cargo ship is currently stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking the vital shipping routeTop editors give you the stories you want — delivered right to your inbox each weekday. The historian Alex Wellerstein called the plan a "modest proposal for the Suez Canal situation" on Twitter on March 24, 2021. It suggested that an "interesting application of nuclear excavation would be a sea-level canal 160 miles long across Israel." The laboratory noted that there were 130 miles of "virtually unpopulated desert wasteland, and are thus amenable to nuclear excavation methods."

Persons: —, Alex Wellerstein, Lawrence Organizations: Service, Twitter, US Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, US Atomic Energy Commission, Forbes, Atomic Energy Commission Locations: Suez, Israel, Aqaba, Central America

Search resuls for: "US Atomic Energy Commission"

5 mentions found