Scientists Probe Whether Uranium Cubes in US Lab Were Produced by Nazis

The New York Times reports: Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland are working to determine whether three uranium cubes they have in their possession were produced by Germany's failed nuclear program during World War II. The answer could lead to more questions, such as whether the Nazis might have had enough uranium to create a critical reaction. And if the Nazis had been successful in building an atomic bomb, what would that have meant for the war...? The Nazis produced 1,000 to 1,200 cubes, about half of which were confiscated by the Allied forces, said Jon Schwantes, the project's principal investigator. "The whereabouts of most all of those cubes is unknown today," Schwantes said, adding that "most likely those cubes were folded into our weapons stockpile." Two history professors speculate in the article that the technology ultimately would not have changed outcome of the war. Kate Brown, who teaches environmental and Cold War history at MIT, argues that without planes that could fly long distances without being spotted, "the only target I can think of would be London." Brown said that while a Nazi bomb would not have had much of an impact on the war, the Nazis set the stage for the Cold War simply by trying to build one. The Soviets, who were then U.S. allies in defeating Germany, were aware that the Americans took this uranium out of the country "right out from under them," she said. "That becomes a real engine for suspicion that sets up the Cold War, almost immediately," Brown said. The project's principle investigator tells the Times they're planning to use a process called radiochronometry to date the cubes by measuring how much their uranium has decayed. "We do believe they are from Nazi Germany's nuclear program, but to have scientific evidence of that is really what we're attempting to do."

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