[BC] speaking of skin effect and Lorentz

[Chuck Lakaytis]

If you read Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb, there is an 
interesting discussion of the Calutrons.  These were basically giant 
mass spectrometers to do U235 concentration.  When they were first 
turned on the magnetic field from the coils was so strong that they 
fractured the mounting bolts and moved the many ton devices several feet 
out of line!

To get decent current through the coils they "borrowed" a good deal of 
the nations silver reserves.  When Col Nichols went down to Fort Knox 
and told the folks there he needed 100 tons of silver, they laughed and 
told him, "Colonel, when we speak of the weight of silver we use the 
Troy Ounce"..  Leslie Groves, the boss of the Manhattan Project, soon 
had the trucks rolling out of Fort Knox loaded with silver.  That silver 
was made into wire, wound into coils for the magnets.  After the war the 
silver was eventually returned to Fort Know.

The Calutrons were made by Allis Chalmers, at the time a big player in 
the turbo generator field.

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