Home

Gareth Jones Books

Gareth Jones

Childhood

Colley Family

My Hobbies

Siriol's Photos

Earl of Abergavenny

The Land Girl in 1917

All Articles of interest

 

Gareth Jones  Lloyd George

 

Major Edgar Jones

Sharm el Sheikh

Book Purchase

Links

Contact Address

The Atomic Bomb

DOCTOR OF SCIENCE EXPLAINS RESEARCH AND DISCOVERY

Dr. J. Stanley Lewis D.Sc., of Woolwich, the son-in-law of Major Edgar and Mrs. Edgar Jones, Barry, gave comprehensive explanation of, atomic research when he spoke to Barry Rotary Club at the Barry Hotel, Barry, on Thursday of last week.

The President  (Mr. Bernard Tyler) was in the chair.

Dr. Lewis explained how Scientific knowledge in the atomic, and electronic field had developed and revealed that we lost our most promising scientist in the first world war. At the age of 24, a scientist named Moseley had made advanced discoveries in the field of radio activity. But he was called up and killed by a Turkish bullet when out on patrol. Had Moseley lived he would undoubt­edly be the leading atomic scientist of to-day.

Dr. Lewis said that until 1940 the making of radio active carbon was the extent of our discovery in the field, and up to that time scientists throughout the world had shared their knowledge, the discovery in 1940 that by bombarding uran­ium with neutrons you could break it into two new particles opened up possibilities in the atomic field so important that nations clamped down a curtain of secrecy on their research

Everything went behind closed doors and nothing was now allowed to leak out except facts which we knew the other person possessed.

Dr. Lewis said that the bomb dropped over Hiroshima had to be carried by a, four engined bomber. The bomb was of considerable weight although the uranium in It weighed only 200 lbs. at the most. But the parts of the bomb had to be packed into thick walls to pro­tect the personnel and also to prevent it going off too quickly. That bomb was made of uranium 235, but the bomb dropped on Nagasaki was made from plutonium, a metal which did not exist on earth and had been made from uranium 238. Plutonium was a heavier metal and it was easier to make atomic bombs from it than from uranium 235.

We were now threatened with a far heavier bomb, the hydrogen bomb, whose effects would be 500 times greater than that of the atomic bomb. The hydrogen bomb would generate heat five times greater than the heat created by the sun and there was wide specul­ation as to its effects. Some people went so far as to say that it would create an atomic re-action which would blow up the earth; others that it would create so much energy that the earth would be pushed off its course. So we had the choice of being pushed nearer the sun and burned up, or pushed farther away and frozen to death!

Dr. Lewis explained how the hydrogen bomb would be a develop­ment from the atomic bomb, and said that the United States would have to put down 500 million dollars to start; research into its manufacture. The uranium bomb cost the price of a battleship, but the more bombs you made the less expensive they were, and to-day the talk was of hundreds and even thousands of bombs.

Explaining what - an atomic bomb would do, Dr. Lewis com­pared it with a T.N.T. bomb. If a T.N.T. bomb did not push a wall over, the suction wave it created threw the wall down. The push from the atomic bomb would be so tremendous that there would be no suction. There was enough blast from an atomic bomb to blow up the whole of Barry. Blast from a V-bomb could kill at 50 yards but blast from an atomic bomb would be lethal at 1,000 yards. A deep dug-out gave protection from the blast.

Radiation from the atomic explosion as also lethal. The gama flash would kill anyone directly exposed to it 1,000 yards away while the gama rays which penetrated the body would cause changes in the blood and affect the marrow In the bones. The rays could be kept out of deep shelters. Infra red rays given off were very energetic. If a bomb fell at Barry Island the sand would be fused like glass. Infra red rays would cause wood to catch alight a mile away from the explosion. In Japan fire caused the greatest casualties. The radioactive materials given off could not be destroyed by burning. They would poison food. If a bomb were dropped in the sea, the splash it created would cover ship a rni1e away with radio active water and its effect would have to be got rid of:

Atomic energy could be used beneficially. To-day we had a new material which could be made into power. We had in our hands an instrument which could do good in the field of medicine, biology, engineering and industry. At the same time it was something with which we could destroy nations or make such an island as ours ~ inhabitable. We could use atomic energy for power, and we could convert it into radioactive atoms, radioactive carbons, and radioactive materials with a detective power. If there was a fracture in an oil pipe line, in the past costly digging operations had to be re­sorted to so that it could be traced, but to-day a radio active material ... 

 

The rest has been lost

 

 

Copyright reserved 2009