Alex WellersteinVerified account

And for the thousands of chemists, metallurgists, and engineers on the project, it would be a sore spot—only the physics was declassifiable.

@wellerstein Secrecy about materials, equipment, and other engineering aspects vastly slowed development of peaceful nuclear energy

@Atomicrod This is because reactors were not, in their initial incarnation, "peaceful" — they were machines for making plutonium.

@wellerstein Were piles that produced controlled chain reactions and heat that engineers knew could be captured and used. Useful knowledge

@wellerstein Jet engines, radar, computers were also not, in their initial incarnation, peaceful. They were tools of war fighting.