The Joe Walker Podcast

Richard Rhodes — The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Jul 25, 2023

03:42:20

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Episode guests

Richard Rhodes

Highlights

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Innovation in Resource Management

01:20

Learning from the Past for a Safer Future

00:43

The Natzi mistakes in trying Graphite and Heavy Water for Chain Reaction

03:27

Military's Strategic Use of Nuclear Weapons for Budget Control

01:32

Introduction

3min

The End of Nuclear Weapons

3min

Reagan and Gorbachev's Strategic Defense Initiative

3min

Gorbachev and Reagan in a Normal House

5min

The Problem With the Strategic Defense Initiative

3min

Why Did America and the Russians Build So Many Nuclear Weapons?

3min

The Prestige Factor in Nuclear Weapons

4min

The Physics of a Nuclear Winter

5min

The Origins of the Atomic Chain Reaction

6min

10.

The Chain Reaction Insight

4min

11.

The Secret of the Manhattan Project

2min

12.

The Germans' Miscalculation of Graphite's Purity in a Nuclear Reactor

6min

13.

The Importance of Scientific Curiosity in the Manhattan Project

3min

14.

The Double Edged Sword of the Bomb

3min

15.

The Motivations of Scientists

4min

16.

The History of the Firebombing

4min

17.

The Importance of Youth in the Manhattan Project

4min

18.

The Problem With the Hiroshima Bomb

2min

19.

The History of the Atomic Bomb

2min

20.

The Physics of Explosion Design

3min

21.

The Importance of Science in the Second World War

2min

22.

The Tragic Death of Robert Oppenheimer

4min

23.

The Life and Times of Robert Oppenheimer

3min

24.

Robert Oppenheimer's Interview With Edward Teller

2min

25.

The Importance of Collaboration in Science

5min

26.

Oppenheimer: A Lab Director

5min

27.

The Life and Times of Robert Oppenheimer

5min

28.

The Importance of Groves

5min

29.

The Importance of Parallel Approaches in Project Management

5min

30.

The Cost of Uranium Separation Plants

3min

31.

The Importance of Organizational Culture in the Manhattan Project

3min

32.

The History of Physics in the Early 20th Century

3min

33.

The Manhattan Project and the History of Science

3min

34.

The Importance of Groves in the Manhattan Project

2min

35.

How to Conduct Interviews Effectively

3min

36.

The Importance of Walking the Ground

3min

37.

The Importance of Language in Interviewing Scientists

4min

38.

The Importance of Reading the History of Nuclear Energy

2min

39.

The Moral Importance of Area Bombing

5min

40.

The History of Bombing

5min

41.

The Social and Cultural Consequences of Nuclear Weapons

4min

42.

The Destroyance of Nuclear Weapons

3min

43.

The Future of Nuclear War

4min

44.

The Stability of Dyads

2min

45.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

4min

46.

The Politics of Nuclear Weapons

4min

47.

The Importance of Luck in Nuclear War

6min

48.

The Importance of Open Science

2min

49.

The Paradox of Nuclear Weapons

3min

50.

The Long Pace of Nuclear Warfare

6min

51.

The Unintended Consequences of Nuclear Weapons

4min

52.

The Danger of Nuclear War

3min

53.

The Parallels Between Atomic Bomb and Artificial General Intelligence

6min

54.

Reverse Engineering of UFO Technology

3min

55.

The Power of Blank Sources

5min

56.

Can We Survive Technology?

4min

57.

The Limits of Growth

4min

58.

The Evolution of Energy

3min

59.

The Slowdown of Transitions in New Technologies

3min

60.

The Slow Re-Education of a Society to Accept and Use New Technologies

5min

Richard Rhodes is an American historian and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Full transcript available at: thejspod.com

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