By DAVID WORLTON
Los Alamos
The new movie on Oppenheimer brings memories from my Dad’s past.
Unfortunately he missed the chance to personally hear him when he last visited Los Alamos in 1963. His group was formed (W4) in 1948 when only five nuclear tests had been done.
The group was the theoretical design group. When he started in June 1960 they were just getting computer codes able to calculate with real physics weapons design. There are only three people from then left (Carmen Geoffrion, Bill Mudd and Reid Worlton).
Troy Eddleman, Reid Worlton and Gary Wall designed the last test (Divider 9-23-1992).
Reid and a coworker were tasked to calculate the neutron and gamma ray output of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to study the effects on the survivors. The data was used for a long time.
Tracking down all of the details of those bombs took some time but they eventually got accurate details. They even found the mass of the blotter paper used to fill gaps in the high explosive lenses used to keep them from rattling in flight.