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The 1940s rush to patent the atomic bomb

NPR: The U.S. atomic bomb was such a secret, scientists and engineers sometimes talked in code. It was the Manhattan Project, not "The Atomic Bomb Project." Plutonium was referred to as "copper," and the bomb itself as "the gadget."

But at the same time, scientists and engineers were furiously filing secret patent applications that described many of the parts in exquisite detail. Those patents sat not behind the fences at Los Alamos, but in a vault at the U.S. Patent Office.

Posted by Physics Today on April 2, 2008 4:21 PM |

Comments

I wanteto mention a useful site for searching patents: http://www.FreePatentsOnline.com

It provides free patent searching, free PDF downloading, allows annoting documents and sharing them, and free alerts for new documents.

Posted by: james | April 18, 2008 1:57 AM

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