Read Online Scandal in the Secret City by Diane Fanning - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Diane Fanning
Ads: Link
recall the surprising turn of events that had brought me here into my new home.
THANKSGIVING 1943
‘Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one bit of living is lost.’
Betty Smith
Author of the 1943 best-seller
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
SEVEN
M y current housing situation was a direct result of the problems in Y-12. Nothing was going as smoothly as the planners had expected. The first fourteen-ton racetrack magnets wrapped with silver windings tested at the end of October were leaking electricity and shorting out the coils. The engineers first suspected moisture. I was dubious about that because the heat of operation should have evaporated it all away. They brought everything to a halt to manually dry off the magnets. When they were certain all of them were completely dry, they started the system up again but it still shorted out. I kept turning the problem over in my mind, trying to figure out the reason and find a solution.
It would help if I could ask the right questions but I wasn’t sure what they were. I ran a sample of product from the alpha lab through the spectrometer recording the distances different substances traveled from the filter. The contaminants I found were not found in the ore and I doubted if the chemists added it during processing. I took the discovery to my supervisor. ‘Charlie, I’ve found copper and plain old dirt in the sample from alpha. I suspect it came from the processing in the Calutron but I can’t be sure without taking samples directly from there and running tests.’
‘What samples will you want to test?’
‘I’d start with the ore, run it through an acid bath and see what shows up there. Then, I’d want to test the end product before it goes to alpha. And finally, I’d just like to look around and see what other substances are introduced during the procedure that could be sources of contamination and test those as well.’
‘Do you think you’ll find anything to explain why the line is shorting out?’
‘I don’t think the spectrometer analysis will answer that question but who knows what else I’ll find. There could be some misapplied physics the engineers aren’t recognizing within the mechanical design. I could check that out as well.’
‘You won’t be able to do that while it’s in operation and I doubt if I can get them to shut down the line for one of my people to crawl around on their equipment. How would you feel about coming up here on Thanksgiving – they’ll be shutting the line down for the holiday. But I wouldn’t be able to help you with it. I’m taking my family over to Virginia to visit my wife’s relatives.’
Would I have to give up a homemade Thanksgiving meal to find the answers? My stomach churned in rebellion over that possibility. Maybe I could do both. ‘I’m supposed to have dinner with the Bishops but I can come up here early and see what I can find. I might get lucky. Meanwhile, I’ll run what samples I can before then.’
‘See what you can do, Libby, but don’t ruin your holiday plans.’
‘I guess that means you don’t think I have much chance of success.’
Charlie sighed. ‘It’s not that I don’t think you can find an answer, Libby. I’m just not sure there is an answer.’
Now, that was a challenge. Intriguing enough to miss out on Thanksgiving dinner? Maybe. I could only hope that it would not come to that. The invitation to spend the holiday with the Bishops came after I met Dr Bishop’s daughter. By the time the last month ended, Eastman Kodak had 4,800 employees on the site – and they were only just one of a number of employers on site. They’d all hired a lot of women but none of them were working as professionals in the labs in Y-12. Somehow, they all seemed to know I was a scientist and nearly every day, one of them sidled up to me with a question about what we were doing and where was it leading. And I wouldn’t –
THANKSGIVING 1943
‘Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one bit of living is lost.’
Betty Smith
Author of the 1943 best-seller
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
SEVEN
M y current housing situation was a direct result of the problems in Y-12. Nothing was going as smoothly as the planners had expected. The first fourteen-ton racetrack magnets wrapped with silver windings tested at the end of October were leaking electricity and shorting out the coils. The engineers first suspected moisture. I was dubious about that because the heat of operation should have evaporated it all away. They brought everything to a halt to manually dry off the magnets. When they were certain all of them were completely dry, they started the system up again but it still shorted out. I kept turning the problem over in my mind, trying to figure out the reason and find a solution.
It would help if I could ask the right questions but I wasn’t sure what they were. I ran a sample of product from the alpha lab through the spectrometer recording the distances different substances traveled from the filter. The contaminants I found were not found in the ore and I doubted if the chemists added it during processing. I took the discovery to my supervisor. ‘Charlie, I’ve found copper and plain old dirt in the sample from alpha. I suspect it came from the processing in the Calutron but I can’t be sure without taking samples directly from there and running tests.’
‘What samples will you want to test?’
‘I’d start with the ore, run it through an acid bath and see what shows up there. Then, I’d want to test the end product before it goes to alpha. And finally, I’d just like to look around and see what other substances are introduced during the procedure that could be sources of contamination and test those as well.’
‘Do you think you’ll find anything to explain why the line is shorting out?’
‘I don’t think the spectrometer analysis will answer that question but who knows what else I’ll find. There could be some misapplied physics the engineers aren’t recognizing within the mechanical design. I could check that out as well.’
‘You won’t be able to do that while it’s in operation and I doubt if I can get them to shut down the line for one of my people to crawl around on their equipment. How would you feel about coming up here on Thanksgiving – they’ll be shutting the line down for the holiday. But I wouldn’t be able to help you with it. I’m taking my family over to Virginia to visit my wife’s relatives.’
Would I have to give up a homemade Thanksgiving meal to find the answers? My stomach churned in rebellion over that possibility. Maybe I could do both. ‘I’m supposed to have dinner with the Bishops but I can come up here early and see what I can find. I might get lucky. Meanwhile, I’ll run what samples I can before then.’
‘See what you can do, Libby, but don’t ruin your holiday plans.’
‘I guess that means you don’t think I have much chance of success.’
Charlie sighed. ‘It’s not that I don’t think you can find an answer, Libby. I’m just not sure there is an answer.’
Now, that was a challenge. Intriguing enough to miss out on Thanksgiving dinner? Maybe. I could only hope that it would not come to that. The invitation to spend the holiday with the Bishops came after I met Dr Bishop’s daughter. By the time the last month ended, Eastman Kodak had 4,800 employees on the site – and they were only just one of a number of employers on site. They’d all hired a lot of women but none of them were working as professionals in the labs in Y-12. Somehow, they all seemed to know I was a scientist and nearly every day, one of them sidled up to me with a question about what we were doing and where was it leading. And I wouldn’t –
Similar Books
