The American Way of 'Building' Nukes & Innovating.
The intricate details, behind Los Alamos' enigmatic operation, and an opening analysis of the method behind the madness. Who's better?
A story that people often forget — is the creative genius, and the madness that goes behind remarkable innovation. What we see — is the movie, we see the drama, we tell others, that hey — look mom, I’ve watched oppenheimer! I’m cultured now, and wow, I’m a part of american history, and I know that story…
And they go on rambling half true, out of context scenes, and vague impressions of what they’ve understood about the story…
And neither do I expect most people to have a fascination with American Prometheus either… the man who gave us fire. It’s not for the faint of heart, and it’s nothing like what’s being expected in a 9-5 job. Even in higher education, it’s likely that you don’t need this kind of ‘existential rigour’ to get the job done.
For me, I suppose this post is more about a question — that aims to uncover the truth behind the intellectual daring, and grandiosity, that went into creating the modern day atomic bomb.
There’s something about it’s sheer power, the magnitude… and almost infinite power, that it grants its user, that I suppose — is faustian in nature, a deal with the devil, one that you can never take back. And whether one has the creative ‘urge’ and daring, to create a war machine — conceived from the inner recesses of their mind.
It’s a momentous task. To completely annihilate. To completely destroy. To completely create a ‘great reset’ where the world gets thrown into a new age, where new values are installed.
All you see — is shifting particles, movements, points in a system… numbers on a screen, even though there’s so much more that’s happening… that these ‘systems’ keep you safe away from. Reducing, boiling, and distilling every ‘morsel’ of your life, down into a number… turning the chaos of the world, into a single point, a single measure, a single result.
It takes supreme measures of mind to achieve such a feat. And in my own experience, not everyone is ready for it. When you do get to such a granular level — such an intense, technically rigorous, and creative level, where every piece — every ‘drop’, every last bit of fucking ‘juice’ counts…
That’s when people don’t recognize you anymore. You turn into another being… you transcend, and see the world in another state, and you see the world as ‘mere playdough’ to be manipulated, destroyed, reshaped — to the whims of your wildest imagination. Pure power in the palm of your hands. Yet these glimpses, are only flashes of power. Yet to be fully realised in the world.
And my fascination with this story — extends beyond the destructive ‘power’ of the bomb, or the drama that went behind oppenheimer’s story. In fact, I believe that he was naive, unaware of the way that games were played in his washington. A mere pawn in a game that he didn’t recognize and see for its true colors. This story — for me, is about the thrill of discovery.
Of creating something.
Of a mission, a mind, and a message that brings together the world’s greatest scientists… and a catalyzing event, that’s unified an entire intellectual community, behind a singular goal. And this is not just any ‘company’. It’s not just any ‘business’. It’s not just throwing a bunch of ‘smart people’ at a problem, and a ‘look mom I’m cool’, kind of vibe.
To be frank — I’ve never had any fun, playing in games that are ‘expedient’ or just based off a bunch of systems, and processes — that a business owner has ‘clobbered’ together, based on someone’s copied work, on another person’s copied work.
I desire REAL problem solving. I desire REAL sense making. I desire to crunch, and think through problems that would make most break at the knees… and emerge victorious through that hellfire, with insight, that people are willing to pay millions, if not tens of millions to access.
In a sense ‘Prometheus’ — but this time, zeus would be too slow to even figure out what’s happened.
Personally, I feel dead — I feel nothing, unless I’m working on intellectually challenging, complex, and dynamic tasks, that command my full attention and focus. Everything else leaves my mind, in an unstructured, meandering fog that leaves my body to rot too.
With my study into Oppenheimer & Los Alamos, I hope to uncover the secrets that have made him great. The things that have caused him to fall, the ideas that brought him to life — and those that accelerated progress at breakneck speed.
I want to know the rules that were broken.
I want to know the rules that were adhered to.
I want to discover how they’ve catalogued, and kept the entire research facility running.
And soon — hopefully, if luck or fate might give me a smile or two, be given the opportunity to create a war machine just like this.
2 references that I’ll be looking into:
Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Some insights that I’m starting to get from the study are as follows:
I believe that they embrace a ‘messy’ cross of experimental / theoretical science. They call it the ‘edison’ approach. This means that they’re looking at tinkering at things until it works — if they didn’t have the ‘math’ for it, then they would ‘guess’ towards it — and solve for the next best methodology. They call it the ‘edison method’ — or the American Method. It’s built as fast as possible, in as short a time as possible, and to get as many into the field as possible.
A story to illustrate this was the difference between American & German Tanks. American tanks — couldn’t really ‘last’ through the war, but they were built quickly, they were built fast, and they were deployed quickly too. And one thing was sure as hell. These tanks shipped really quickly — and they moved out fast.
German tanks on the other hand — were pure feats of mechanical engineering, things were produced like clockwork, everything measured down the milimetre, and they were extremely well machined.
However, the quantity of tanks produced — greatly suffered, and as a result, not so many tanks on the battlefield.
Now instead of having ‘tanks’ on the field, you have ideas in the process of building nukes… and you assemble a bunch of ‘good enough’ ideas into a factory, and somehow — an atomic bomb was created.
The context also was — that many of these engineers & scientists didn’t have the technology to build, or even the science to do the calculations, and inventions, approximations, and new mental models, were created… just to solve this problem on the fly.
Compare and contrast this to your typical ‘business’ owner— trying to get the operations right, before ‘going full speed’ into sales. I don’t think that it’s operations, or sales.
It’s bigger than that.
It’s case and thesis.
Or — in a broader perspective… what’s your view of the world, and what does this ‘view’ say… when taken to it’s logical extreme? What does it suggest? What does it tell you?
And you work from the ‘view’. The perspective. From your perceived EDGE. From the essential INSIGHT, that your business works from. From the thing that NO one else knows, but you…
Or the thing that no one else can comprehend, except for you…
Operations or ‘not’… doesn’t fucking matter anymore ahah. You have your strategy— which tells you how much to ‘invest’ into your operations. German or American. You choose.
Zander.