Abstract
During the Manhattan Project, the rare element polonium (Po) was synthesized by neutron bombardment of bismuth in nuclear reactors for use in neutron-generating triggers that were used to initiate the fission chain reactions in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. In this paper, I explore the physics of why polonium was used, why the triggers contained the amount of polonium that they did, and for how long a given mass of bismuth had to be irradiated in the Oak Ridge X-10 pile or a Hanford plutonium-production pile to generate a given amount of Po. A simple neutron-flux model gives results in reasonable accord with estimates recorded in a 1943 letter written by Robert Oppenheimer.
Published Version
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