University of Dayton Chautauqua Course

 

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Chautauqua Course DAY-14

 

The Birthplace and Early History of the Atomic Bomb

 

FERENC M. SZASZ, Department of History, University of New Mexico, and other speakers

 

September 30 - October 2, 2010 in and near Albuquerque, NM                                                   Apply: DAY

 

Note:  This course is based in Albuquerque, NM.  Applications should be sent to the DAY Field Center.  This course has a course fee of $395 (in addition to the $100 application fee), which covers van travel on field trips, and other course-related expenses.  Optional reduced rate lodging will be available to early applicants.

 

            This course will explore the science, politics and geography behind the creation of the world's first atomic weapons via lectures and field trips.  Although the top-secret Manhattan Project created installations all across the country, the community with the highest profile remained Los Alamos, NM.  On those remote mesas, director J. Robert Oppenheimer led an international team of scientists and engineers to create the weapons that ended the Second World War.  Although the Uranium weapon (Hiroshima) was never field tested before field combat use, scientists insisted on testing what became the Plutonium bomb (Nagasaki), and that test occurred at Trinity Site, NM on July 16, 1945.  After the war Sandia National Laboratory became and still is an integral part of the nation's defense system.

 

            This three-day course will examine the origin and early saga of atomic weapons.  It will consist of formal lectures on the first day, a trip to Los Alamos on the second day, and a visit to Trinity Site on the final day.  Participants will explore the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History (formerly the National Atomic Museum) in Albuquerque and the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, as well as other atomic-related venues.

 

For college teachers of:  all disciplines.  Prerequisites:  none.

 

 

Costs for 2010

Application fee: $100

Course fee: $395 [Due in March 2010]

Optional on-site lodging: about $xx per night for one or two people

 

 

Dr. Szasz is Regents' Professor of History at the University of New Mexico and author of British Scientists and the Manhattan Project and The Day the Sun Rose Twice: The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion, July 16, 1945.  The other speakers are all specialists in early atomic history.

 

 

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University of Dayton Chautauqua Course