Well, I did something I never thought I would do. I went to a lecture at the asylum this evening. Dr Isabella Karle, who should have won a Nobel prize – but didn’t – gave a talk on xray-chrystography. And oh by the way she distilled the plutonium chloride used in the earliest experiments with plutonium based atomic bombs when she worked on the Manhattan Project. The Trinity explosion and the Nagasaki bombs used plutonium. Hiroshima used uranium. (They just had enough uranium for one bomb. They were sure it would work – so it wasn’t tested. Just exploded over Hiroshima. They were not so sure that plutonium would work – but they had lots of plutonium – hence the test at the Trinity site.) BTW – she said the plutonium chloride is a lovely bottle-green crystal.
Now, the dear lady is 93 years old. Her talk would have been better 10 years ago. But, my understanding of her subject matter would have been better 10 years ago as well.
And you thought it was just bingo at the asylum. Don’t feel bad – so did I.