Los Alamos
built our ski slope
The social life, by the way, was just fine for married
couples There were a lot of young marrieds We saw
each other all the time. And a lot of children were born
out there Our first child was born there
Emerald: What kind of work did each of you do?
Olum: A lot of our work was devoted to taking a look
at the materials and what could be used. I was really
looking at the neutron production in the bomb and the
neutron flux.
Later on, our group had the job of calculating the
predicted total energy release of the bomb. It involved
producing an enormous wave type equation that would
describe the explosion of the bomb as it moved out
Novick: I was only involved in one part of it, the
energy release experimentals. Under Fermi, we mea
sured the amount of plutonium and the fision products
left in the crater after the explosion.
Two of us had the job of measuring the plutonium,
but the other guy got scared out so I was left to do it
myself Fermi had said the chances were 1 in 10 that we
might ignite the atmosphere, and that frightened him, so
he went back to Los Alamos
Olum: Oh yeah? Really?
Novick: Yeah, he went back and left me to do it
myself
Olum: What did he think was going to happen if the
atmosphere was ignited; he’d be safe there?
Olum mumbles something about "idiocy." Novick
snickers.
Emerald: Was there a rush to hurry up and get the
research done, to build the bomb before anyone else
did?
Olum: Sure, before the _
\ A / s-v nil
Nowick: The whole evening was kind of interesting
because there were thunderstorms, and it was so
goddamned dry. After it rained the frogs appeared, and
I couldn’t believe there were frogs — zillions of them
There was some question whether they could (drop
the bomb) because the airplanes couldn’t fly You'd
hear over the intercom somebody saying, "It's contrary
to Air Force regulations for a B-29 to fly into a thunder
head We will not go in ” And then some general on the
ground is ordering the B-29 to go in
Finally they said let’s go There was a countdown
You could here 10-9-8 then there was an enormous
blast of light, and that with the dramatic thunderheads
and the dawn sky — it was sobering
I was one of the first people in afterward to collect
samples, we had a tank and Herbert Anderson was
going in with that goddamn tank He would fire rockets
in between samples but that didn't work at all, these
guys were getting pretty heavy radium
The next day I went into the center and collected
samples While I was there I found a dead rabbit that
was obviously killed in the blast The generals wanted to
know what it looked like it didn’t look like much
Olum is quiet, looking down at the table and playing
with his pen Novick waits for the next question, sinking
back into the leather chair.
Emerald: What was it like when you went into the
crater?
Novick: It was a shallow crater, but it was all coated
with green glass There wasn’t anything left of the tower
or anything like that The glass came from the melted
soil.
Emerald: What was your reaction to the bombing at
_ Hiroshima?
German s did it We ail
thought the Germans
were two years ahead of
us.
Emerald: How much of a
rush was there? Were you
working 18-20 hours a
day?
Olum: I think for exper
Olum: we knew
we were going
to buiid a bomb.
Ulum: | think we al! — at
least I believed — that
since we were in the mid
dle of a war and since
hundreds of thousands of
people might die in an at
tempt to invade Japan,
that it was probably an
appropriate or believable
tmentors at Los Alamos
the pressure was enormous Eighteen hours a day7 The
answer is yes, in the cyclotron unit The pressure on the
people developing the experiment and the design was
immense
Emerald: What about the test explosion at
Almogordo? Were both of you there?
(Almagordo was the test site for the first atomic
bomb.)
Olum: I saw it. I wasn’t there at the site, I saw it at a
considerable distance I saw it sitting on a mountain top
near Albequrque
Novick: I was there
Olum: How far away were you? Ten, 20 miles?
Novick: No, nine miles away Or maybe 9,000 feet. I
don't remember which, but I was in the first group not in
bunkers.
Olum: Those really saw a fantastic explosion
Novick: I was next to Groves, Oppenheimer and
Fermi Fermi was throwing strips of paper into the air to
calculate for the energy release
(Groves is General Leslie Groves, the head of Los
Alamos for the United States military. Oppenheimer is
Robert Oppenheimer, the head scientist at the project.)
Emerald: What was your reaction?
Olum: Unbelievable We saw, from what was an
enormous distance, this fantastic explosion with the
entire sky lighting up I must admit that we were scared
for the people there because it looked as though it
consumed everything it was so huge
Aaron Novick
military posuiuii.
Olum's answer is choppy as he picks his words
carefully He shifts in his chair several times He aligns
his pen to a perfect parallel with the horizontal lines on
the legal pad as he speaks.
A lot of us wondered why it wouldn’t work to let the
Japanese scientists know that we were going to drop
the bomb, as a test on Fujiama or something like
that They ought to have had some equipment
around to measure it and see what would happen
But, I think that most people accepted it as
inevitable, in the middle of the war with all the dangers
that were coming
Novick: People have to understand how you feel in
the course of a war like that — it’s kind of a war
physcosis Only much later did I really feel the
consequences My stomach got upset and I got ill
Emerald: From the scientific standpoint though.
Paul Olum
ble to stop and hope that it would never exist
But the knowledge that such a bomb could be
made would prevent that The Russians would have
built it We would have built it
Emerald: What about the arms race now’ How do
you view that?
Olum: It's a disaster
Novick: It's my feeling that the weapons themselves
have become the enemy When it's a hair trigger
situation, it doesn't make sense
Olum When you have an arsenal of weaponry that
can destroy the whole world several times over, and
therefore you are dependent every time on someone
not doing it that's a terribly dangerous way to live
Emerald: What about your views on nuclear
energy?
Olum: Despite, what everyone might think, we
haven't learned to do it right I think most of us believe
that if fusion energy could be developed there's a
reasonably good chance that it could provide a rea
sonable source of energy In order to make it so we've
got to solve some problems
Novick: I don't object in principle But, for example,
the disposal of nuclear waste is not sound
In so many ways we humans are reaching the phys
ical limit of our planet and we're running out of primary
materials If we were to suddenly have unlimited sup
plies of energy, we'd quickly get ourselves into trouble
Emerald: Do either of you regret having worked on
the Manhattan Project or at Los Alamos?
Olum and Novick grimace They both hesitate,
waiting for the other to speak first
Olum: That s a hard question because it cuts both
ways I think the answer in part has to be yes
Opf>enheimer said once, "Physicists know sin " It's
true it probably would have existed without us
Anybody who has worked on something that could end
wasn t there elation that it
actually had worked?
Novick: We already
knew it worked from
Almogordo All of the big
headlines and what else,
there was some pleasure
in seeing all that — The
Surprise the World
Felt
Novick: The weapons
themselves have
become the enemy.
up destroying an Human
kind must have some
feelings of remorse, re
gret
On the other hand, it
would be dishonest not to
say that they were very
exciting times in the
scientific community at
Los Alamos
uium: tou can x neip
being involved in that, but I think most of us were upset
at the attack on Nagasaki. They’d already made their
point, they'd already shown what they could do To drop
the bomb seemed irresponsible
Novick: I had the experience of being in Japan in
the ’60s A scientist I know, we were riding the same
train, told me he was from Nagasaki or Hiroshima, I
forget which, but his aunt had been killed there
I told him how awful I felt Don't feel bad ' he said, ‘I
would have done the same thing
Novick sighs, looking down.
Emerald: How do you view the bombings now9
Novick: It was a terrible mistake the fact that we
used the bombs puts us morally in a very weak position
I think it just made nuclear war all the more likely
Olum: The big question is, if we hadn't dropped the
bomb on Hiroshima — Nagasaki never should have
been bombed, that is almost sickening that it happened
— would the Japanese have sued for peace without it?
Novick: Scientists in Chicago anticipated it they
had petitions to stop it. We were so involved with the
preparation of the bomb and its testing that we lost our
good sense
Olum: What we really should have done is stop
when Germany surrendered Once the war was over
and you knew that there was no longer the threat of a
bomb from the other side, it would have been reasona
nfur»ui. wiy
regret for my participation is really trivial compared to
my regret that there are bombs and they're used True,
like Paul, I found those exciting times and enjoyed those
people very much, but if my not having particiapted
would have stopped them, then by all means
But personal regret is small in comparison to the
deeper regret
Olum leans forward, using his pen to emphasize his
answer
Olum: Do you realize a very small change in nature
could have prevented it? When an atom splits apart,
neutrons come out instantaneously If they'd have
waited 1/1000th of a second, it never could have
happened If they'd have come out a little slower, the
bomb would have blown itself up before it could gener
ate much
Olum sits back, his pen askew on the yellow legal
pad
There is some shame. Some regret But that's easy
retroactively At the time, there was a war on against the
greatest enemy we'd ever known If Hitler had the bomb
and we didn't We had to do it We had no choice
Story by Debbie Howlett
Photos by Bob Baker