Los Alamos Science, Volume 2, Number 2, Summer/Fall 1981

28 cm, 159, [1] pages. Wraps. Illustrations (some color). Figures. Cover has slight wear and soiling. This issues focuses on Reactor Safety. Los Alamos Science, the flagship publication of Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1980 through 2005, was distributed to the international scientific community, academic libraries, and US government policymakers. It presented a coherent picture of some of the most exciting scientific initiatives of the Laboratory and served as a forum for LANL scientists to display the breadth and depth of their research and its significance to national security. Many volumes are devoted to areas in which LANL was or still is a leader. These range from frontiers in the biosciences to those in the physical sciences, and predictive science. Some themes reflect LANL's focus on fundamental physics while others convey LANL's role in national security. A hallmark of Los Alamos Science was the development of articles that tackle difficult concepts. These presentations were intended to foster interdisciplinary research, enabling scientists in one field to become familiar with the ideas and techniques of another field. Another special feature of the Los Alamos Science series are the volumes celebrating Laboratory anniversaries (40th, 50th, 60th). They provide snapshots of the entire Laboratory that illustrate the evolution of the nuclear weapons mission and other programs. The Laboratory was established in 1943 as site Y of the Manhattan Project for a single purpose: to design and build an atomic bomb. It took just 20 months. On July 16, 1945, the world's first atomic bomb was detonated 200 miles south of Los Alamos at Trinity Site on the Alamogordo bombing range. Under the scientific leadership of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the military direction of General Leslie R. Groves, scientists at the Laboratory had successfully weaponized the atom. Hitler was defeated in Europe, but the Japanese Empire continued to wage an aggressive Pacific war. So President Harry S. Truman chose to employ atomic bombs in an effort to end WWII. Little Boy, a uranium gun-type weapon, was used against Hiroshima; Fat Man, an implosion plutonium bomb, was dropped on Nagasaki. On August 14, the war officially ended. An invasion of the Japanese home islands proved unnecessary, thus sparing thousands of American and Japanese lives. The Los Alamos of today has a heightened focus on worker safety and security awareness, with the ever-present core values of intellectual freedom, scientific excellence, and national service. Outstanding science underpins the Laboratory's past and its future. A rich variety of research programs directly and indirectly support the Laboratory's basic mission: maintaining the safety, security, and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent without the need to return to underground testing. With a national security focus, the Laboratory also works on nuclear nonproliferation and border security, energy and infrastructure security, and countermeasures to nuclear and biological terrorist threats. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus.…