Thin Man (nuclear bomb) Thin Man (nuclear bomb) "Thin Man" was the code name for a proposed plutonium gun-type nuclear bomb using plutonium-239 which the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. They aborted its development when they discovered that the spontaneous fission rate of their nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type design, due to the high concentration of the isotope plutonium-240. In 1942, prior to the Army taking over wartime atomic research, Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June and Berkeley, California, in July at which various engineers and physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues. A
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board takes into account when deciding the time of the Clock each year. As of August 2018, the "Bulletin"'s Board of Sponsors boasts 13 Nobel Laureates In the 1950s, the "Bulletin" was involved in the formation of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, annual conferences of scientists concerned about nuclear proliferation, and, more broadly, the role of science in modern society. The founder and first editor of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" was biophysicist Eugene Rabinowitch (1901–1973). He founded the magazine with physicist Hyman Goldsmith. Rabinowitch was a professor of botany and biophysics at the University of