Los Alamos from Below -- Reminiscences of 1943-1945

Abstract

Richard P. Feynman, who is Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in physics, spent the war years working on the Manhattan District atomic bomb project, first at Princeton University, then at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He recalled those years last February, in a public lecture at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His was one of nine talks given in a lecture series there, under the general heading of "Reminiscences of Los Alamos, 1943-1945." The other speakers included George Kistiakowsky, Laura Fermi, Edwin McMillan, and Norris Bradbury, and all the talks are now being edited for book publication by William Badash, professor of history at UCSB. It's a book we look forward to with relish, after sampling only the Feynman talk, "Los Alamos From Below” which you'll find on page 11. The article has been adapted from a direct transcript of the talk given by Feynman at Santa Barbara on February 6, 1975.