Abstract
AbstractWhy did German physicists not build an atomic bomb during the Second World War? This question has long been controversial. This essay provides a new perspective through a focus on the everyday practice of the physicists in their laboratories. The study of everyday research work has long been obscured by the question of the bomb. To this end, the research of the Viennese group in the GermanUranverein, or “Uranium Club,” will be analyzed in detail. What breaks and continuities were there in everyday laboratory practice? Were the physicists able to acquire new resources? Did they at least come close to the scale of Big Science or did their research remain tied to the academic laboratory?
Funder
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,History
Reference84 articles.
1. For example, David Cassidy discussed the controversies between Samuel Goudsmit and Werner Heisenberg in 1991 and the dispute between Niels Bohr and Heisenberg led to Michael Frayn’s famous play Copenhagen: David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1991); Michael Frayn, Copenhagen (New York: Anchor Books, 2000).
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