Farm Hall

The Farm Hall transcripts were made during and after the second world war in Britain over the possibility of Germans producing an atomic bomb during the war.

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Almost at the end of the second world war, Werner Heisenberg was captured at his family in Bayern (a part of Germany) and transferred to the UK together with other physicists including Walther Gerlach, Otto Hahn, and Carl von Weizsacker. They were housed in a farm near Cambridge that was equipped with small microphones placed by the British to find out what exactly Heisenberg and his team knew about constructing an atomic bomb. They did not speak a lot about it, so the British obtained little useful information. This changed on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was bombed. Heisenberg and his team wondered how the Americans succeeded in building an atomic bomb.

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From these conversations it became clear that Heisenberg and his team were far from being able to construct an atomic bomb (or even a working reactor). They made several critical mistakes, including gross overestimation of the required critical mass.

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Soon after this Heisenberg was released, as he was considerd no longer a risk.

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(For reference see Thomas Powers' book Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, published in 1993.)

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Second world war: REDIRECT World War II...

Britain: This article deals with the history of the word Britain. For clarification of terminology and an overview of articles about Britain and Ireland see British Isles (terminology)....

Atomic bomb: REDIRECT Nuclear weapon...

Farm Hall related Images and Photos (experimental)

Sheepshearing Esthwaite Hall Farm from Portfolio of Prints from the Original Watercolours C.1920	Farm	Hall Pass	Hall Pass (DVD)
Farm Truck	Farm Tracks	Farm People	Farm Animals
Farm Animals	My Farm	City Hall (DVD)	The Farm