What are you currently reading?

[ThunderTitan]

You know that not all german WWII scientists were nazis, right? And from what i read they didn't have enough uranium for the bomb because the Allies bombed their heavy water factories.

As for the Eastern Europe branch of the CIA being the former Nazi operation, that's quite common over here, all secret services in former commie countries are continuations of the former secret police under new names (proudly following the tradition set by the original russian organization).

[Caradoc]

You know that not all german WWII scientists were nazis, right? And from what i read they didn't have enough uranium for the bomb because the Allies bombed their heavy water factories.

As for the Eastern Europe branch of the CIA being the former Nazi operation, that's quite common over here, all secret services in former commie countries are continuations of the former secret police under new names (proudly following the tradition set by the original russian organization).

I guess that being an officer in the SS does not necessarily mean that that one is a Nazi, but many of these guys were at least sympathetic to the cause. And though some of the heavy water facilities may have been destroyed, others were moved along with the enriched uranium already produced.

[Corribus]

It appears that at the end of the war, they were pretty far along to the road to the nuclear bomb and that some deal was made for the US to acquire enough enriched uranium from them to make the first bomb.

I'm afraid the Germans were probably nowhere close to completing an atomic bomb. Their hopes of securing enough heavy water - let alone the appropriate engineering technology - were pretty much destroyed when the Allies (actually, the British) sabotaged the Norwegian heavy water facility in Vermork. Even if the Germans had been anywhere close to getting the required heavy water to make a reactor work, a reactor was only the first step in a huge effort to actually make a bomb. The amount of engineering breakthroughs that had to be made was astounding. After the war was over, Allies discovered that the Germans were much farther from a bomb than was feared, and Operations Freshman, Grouse and Gunnerside were probably not even necessary, although I'm convinced the story should be made into a modern movie.

If you want to know more about the Nazi bomb effort, such as it was, and the American bomb effort, I suggest the Pulitzer Prize winning "The making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. The book does not skimp on detail.

[ThunderTitan]

Anyone else find it funny that an american born german jew was the guy that headed the development of the bomb?

[Kalah]

Irani ambassador: "I know what the US fears; an Islamic bomb."
Leo: "And I know Iran's fear; a Jewish bomb."
Irani ambassador: "Fermi, Oppenheimer, Teller... they're all Jewish bombs."

I'm afraid the Germans were probably nowhere close to completing an atomic bomb. Their hopes of securing enough heavy water - let alone the appropriate engineering technology - were pretty much destroyed when the Allies (actually, the British) sabotaged the Norwegian heavy water facility in Vermork.

Ahem! T'was a British-supported Norwegian mission. Our guys. More stuff on it here. The facility was blown up during operation Gunnerside. Only a few months later, however, production was back up and running. The British tried bombing the site, halting production for yet another short while.
On the 20th of February 1944 a transport barge with heavy water was sunk by the Norwegian resistance as it was crossing a lake. It was the end of Germany's heavy water efforts in Norway.

You're probably right that the Germans were far from completing a project building an atomic bomb. The thing is, the Germans had so many irons in the fire; trying to develop super-weapons. Tanks, planes, rockets, cannon... they simply couldn't decide what to go for, and they didn't have enough resources to do it all (though that didn't stop them from trying). Unlike the Americans, who set out to build an atomic bomb and allocated vast resources to that end. Nobody knows how long it would have taken Germany to complete their nuke, or if they had ever succeeded in building it, but it is clear that the successful operations at Rjukan played an important part in halting their efforts.

[Corribus]

Ahem! T'was a British-supported Norwegian mission. Our guys.

Sorry...

[asandir]

I'm still waiting for my copies of The Legacy and Starless Night .... been about 2 weeks now and getting very tired of waiting!

[Mytical]

The Dark Tower books. Interesting read, a little confusing at times however. (Maybe just me). Sadly most of the good Sci-fi and Fantasy books I read when I was a kid. Consumed up to 10 books a day sometimes.

[winterfate]

I'm still waiting on the third book of Eragon and the last book of Harry Potter myself...

I want to see how the Eragon trilogy ends...

[asandir]

and i'm also waiting for my books .... taking a long time

[Mytical]

Yeah seems like books take longer then most things, and cost a small fortune for shipping. Sometimes shipping cost more then the blasted book does! For instance, found a great deal on a paperback LoTR set. Was able to purchase all of them for a sum of money. When it got to total ammount, it had more then doubled because of shipping.

[asandir]

and I'm just waiting on the library!!

[Angelspit]

So, who's going to pick up the "new Tolkien" ? It's fairly short, but the price is decent (around $15), so I'll put it on my wishlist.

[Veldrynus]

Right, it is a "new Tolkien", and not a new Tolkien. That's why I don't care about it in the first place.

[ThunderTitan]

I only bought LotR coz it was cheap for a full trilogy package. But I'm sure I'll read a synopsis somewhere.

[Omega_Destroyer]

Reading nothing at the moment.

[Marzhin]

I recently finished reading the Earthsea books by Ursula le Guin. Very good stuff.

[DemonHunter]

I finnished the drenai series by David Gemmel and just started his smaller hawk queen serie

[asandir]

well I got The Legacy and Starless Night and finished The Legacy already, not bad though had a surprising turn in it

[ThunderTitan]

Yeah, i guess someone pointed out the thing about the 2 humans getting together being cliched or somesuch.