Talk:Calutron

Iraq's Calutrons
You must be more objective in your comments. Developing an atom bomb and believe than Irak developed this arm, are two thinks very different. Thierry


 * You seem to be mistaken about what the text means. It says that before the war over Kuwait, Iraq had a nuclear program which employed calutrons. This is well known and not a controversial statement. The question which "Bush Jr." was trying to settle -- and was apparently quite incorrect on -- was whether they continued to have one after the war. --Fastfission 13:11, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

The IEEE article "how iraq reverse engineered the bomb" mentioned something about calutrons - in 1945 they were all manually controlled - but in 1980 they could all be automatically controlled for greater efficiency —Preceding unsigned comment added by Feldercarb (talk • contribs) 02:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Gladys Owens
No part of the reference claims that Ms. Owens only learned the purpose of her work when she toured the site. I can't fathom why Greensburger would revert my removal of that sentence. Deltabeignet 05:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the deleted sentence with exact quotes from the angeltowns reference - one clause from a caption and another clause from the first paragraph of the reference. Greensburger 12:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Copied material in article, unreferenced
This article seems well-written and reasonably well-sourced. However, two tags in the article imply material in article is copied from two published source. Such material needs to be referenced properly: copied text needs quotation marks and in-line citations. It may not be copyright violation if the source is public domain, but any copying from published sources, PD or not, requires referencing. Why not identify the copied material, put it in quotes properly, and not require the tag? The tag is an insult to the work of wikipedia editors of the article, whose wording is implied to be copied, too. doncram (talk) 20:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)


 * From my reading of WP:PDR and WP:PD, the material is being used properly and is properly cited. I don't think that it is possible to segregate public domain material in the way that you describe nor have I seen it done that way in articles that rely heavily on public domain sources (e.g. DANFS). --Kkmurray (talk) 05:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It certainly is possible to "segregate" public domain material, just treat it like any other copyrighted material: use quotations if you copy passages word-for-word, use in-line citations when you rely upon it as the source. If you do not treat this source in that way, then all material in the article is suspect, because it is unclear which material is from what source or which material is new original research, not from any source at all.  By the way,the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS), often used in articles about ships, is itself a very-well-verified, well-maintained encyclopedia, and is better-than-average public domain material.  This, however, is not an article about a ship.  There exists inaccurate, outdated, really lousy public domain material as well, which I am familiar with.  I don't know about the quality of the material cited in this article, but certainly not all public domain material is encyclopedic.  Whether it is encyclopedic or not, you can (and in my opinion should) use quotations and treat it like any other source. doncram (talk) 05:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This entire article is plagiarized from . This is not public domain material—LBL is operated by a contractor to the DOE and has its own copyright policies (its works are not automatically "works of the federal government"), and while LBL makes its materials available for public reuse they specifically clarify that it is not for commercial purposes, which is not public domain. In any case it is not being used in an intellectually honest way—this is largely the work of the historians John Heilbron, Robert W. Seidel, and Bruce R. Wheaton, who deserve to have their authorship noted. This text should be blanked and re-written. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 04:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)


 * That www link now dead, but search finds www2 LBL "Calutron" article (as Episode 2 of "Lawrence and His Laboratory"). That is 12 paragraphs (no sub headings). (Paras 1, 5 and 7, link to brief footnotes.) Current article much longer now (it grew a lot in 2015), with many references (none apparently to the LBL Calutron history article) - Rod57 (talk) 09:41, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Scaling up at Oak Ridge
Could someone please verify:

"Want of copper for the large coils to produce the magnetic fields prompted a solution possible only in wartime: Groves drafted 14,700 tons (13,300 tonne) of pure silver from a government vault for the purpose. " Should this read 14 700 lbs(fourteen thousand seven hundred)? Or maybe 14,7 tons (fourteen decimal seven)? Fourteen thousand tons of silver seems excessive, even in this context. Denis (talk) 14:28, 7 January 2009 (UTC)


 * It's in the references. It's not all that much; remember that umpteen millions of silver dollars were around. Actually it's a perfectly sensible thing to do at any time, including peacetime: having the metal doing something useful rather than sitting in a vault is eminently sane. Security wouldn't be a problem in a top-secret military installation. And it was returned when no longer needed. So long as you don't need to spend it! The physical properties of silver actually make it better than copper for electrical wiring (and heatsinks and cooking utensils); the only reason silver isn't routinely used is the cost. Pol098 (talk) 15:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Edit comment and question
In Construction section, paragraph 6, the following sentence makes no sense to me, "The first Beta racetrack and the third and repaired first became operational in March 1944, and the fourth in April 1944." Does it mean 1st Beta and the 1st (repaired) and 3rd Alphas? Please clarify. Thanks. Djmaschek (talk) 04:16, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * WPMILHIST=B class. Djmaschek (talk) 04:22, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Section titles don't reflect content - change headings or content ?
Section titles don't seem to reflect content very well. It reads like a block of text has had section headings inserted into it, rather than each section being written to explain the topic of its heading.

So, should we change the headings, or move the text around to fit under the headings ?

For example : The first paragraph of "Operations" looks like is about the design, perhaps it belongs on the end of the "Construction" section above. Just moving "Operations" heading down one paragraph seems an improvement. - Rod57 (talk) 09:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC)