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
Hans Kronberger (physicist) Hans Kronberger (physicist) Hans Kronberger CBE, FRS (28 July 1920 – 29 September 1970) was a British physicist. During his career with the UK Atomic Energy Authority he made important contributions to the development of the British thermonuclear bomb and nuclear power engineering, especially in the field of isotope separation. Hans Kronberger was born of Jewish parents in Linz, Austria, where his father was a leather merchant. Kronberger attended the Akademische Gymnasium in Linz, matriculating in Mathematics, Latin, Greek and German; he was a brilliant scholar. After the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Kronberger fled