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The upcoming epic thriller based on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.
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Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:20 am
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 3rd, 2023, 7:28 pm
Innovator wrote:
June 3rd, 2023, 5:30 pm
Oh my lord, the projectile being shot at 0:03 looks exactly like the gun design used for Little Boy! If this is right, I don't know what's more exciting: the fact that Hiroshima would have to be in the film for this, or the fact that the projectile is actually depicted accurately as being hollow (most sources I know get this wrong, showing a solid projectile fired into a hollow target rather than the other way around, because the actual arrangement was only discovered fairly recently).
Wasn't the gun type design at least tested? It could be that. If they're dedicating time to the implosion design, they will likely show the reason why and also their main alternative. And even if it's not what they ended up using for the test, they would still show it, no?

By the way, I'd seen elsewhere that Strauss' clip in this teaser took place in a 1949 meeting, which I think would line up with the "they just fired a starting gun" and him holding up a graph of presumably some radiological measurements or something... because that's the year Russia tested its bomb and would be a convenient prelude to the later hearings against Oppenheimer.

Unless it's one of the charts from that Trinity report that's merely measuring it's expansion over log time.

I'm not too well-versed on the history to know whether it strictly is or isn't.
The gun bomb wasn't tested; they only had enough enriched uranium for one bomb, and they were confident that Little Boy would work without testing (unlike the much more complicated implosion mechanism). So if that shot of the projectile is indeed the gun design in action, it'd have to be from its use over Hiroshima. My hope is that Nolan goes sufficiently deep into the physics to convey to audiences how both designs worked, and why implosion was ultimately needed.

Yeah, that scene with Strauss makes the most sense for the GAC meetings in 1949, with the "starting gun" almost certainly referring to the first Soviet bomb as you said. My guess is that chart is showing radioactivity (from material collected on filter papers attached to B-29s) as a function of time, with a peak representing the Soviet test, but I can't be sure as a lot of the documents from this period aren't available online (the closest thing I could find is on page 4 of this paper, but they used a slightly different means of measuring radioactivity, using rain samples rather than filter paper, so I don't think it's what Strauss is showing in this scene: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/r ... genumber=4).

Posts: 33
Joined: February 2023
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 2:01 am
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:20 am
...
The gun bomb wasn't tested; they only had enough enriched uranium for one bomb, and they were confident that Little Boy would work without testing (unlike the much more complicated implosion mechanism). So if that shot of the projectile is indeed the gun design in action, it'd have to be from its use over Hiroshima. My hope is that Nolan goes sufficiently deep into the physics to convey to audiences how both designs worked, and why implosion was ultimately needed.

Yeah, that scene with Strauss makes the most sense for the GAC meetings in 1949, with the "starting gun" almost certainly referring to the first Soviet bomb as you said. My guess is that chart is showing radioactivity (from material collected on filter papers attached to B-29s) as a function of time, with a peak representing the Soviet test, but I can't be sure as a lot of the documents from this period aren't available online (the closest thing I could find is on page 4 of this paper, but they used a slightly different means of measuring radioactivity, using rain samples rather than filter paper, so I don't think it's what Strauss is showing in this scene: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/r ... genumber=4).
Ah, I see. I read up on bits and pieces of the development and didn't know how much about the gun type other than that far less effort was spent on it compared to the implosion-type design. That's pretty crazy though, you mean they didn't even test the mechanism and yet that was the first one they used for the actual bombing? I would have thought that with the months they spent improving the shaped charges and getting it to work properly, they would have gone "hey, let's just do one test of this gun barrel thing". It seems like quite the gamble to have gone with Little Boy first.

Neat! Also, methods like that always sound so cool and simple. Just fly some planes up near Russia collecting radioactive dust. Get a time series of those samples. Someone makes measurements from those samples and draws a curve to fit them. Say, what made the US decide to take those measurements? Any intelligence that gave them suspicion?

I really appreciate your posts sharing the detailed history! Thank you for replying!

Posts: 285
Joined: April 2023
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:40 pm
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 2:01 am
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:20 am
...
The gun bomb wasn't tested; they only had enough enriched uranium for one bomb, and they were confident that Little Boy would work without testing (unlike the much more complicated implosion mechanism). So if that shot of the projectile is indeed the gun design in action, it'd have to be from its use over Hiroshima. My hope is that Nolan goes sufficiently deep into the physics to convey to audiences how both designs worked, and why implosion was ultimately needed.

Yeah, that scene with Strauss makes the most sense for the GAC meetings in 1949, with the "starting gun" almost certainly referring to the first Soviet bomb as you said. My guess is that chart is showing radioactivity (from material collected on filter papers attached to B-29s) as a function of time, with a peak representing the Soviet test, but I can't be sure as a lot of the documents from this period aren't available online (the closest thing I could find is on page 4 of this paper, but they used a slightly different means of measuring radioactivity, using rain samples rather than filter paper, so I don't think it's what Strauss is showing in this scene: https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/r ... genumber=4).
Ah, I see. I read up on bits and pieces of the development and didn't know how much about the gun type other than that far less effort was spent on it compared to the implosion-type design. That's pretty crazy though, you mean they didn't even test the mechanism and yet that was the first one they used for the actual bombing? I would have thought that with the months they spent improving the shaped charges and getting it to work properly, they would have gone "hey, let's just do one test of this gun barrel thing". It seems like quite the gamble to have gone with Little Boy first.

Neat! Also, methods like that always sound so cool and simple. Just fly some planes up near Russia collecting radioactive dust. Get a time series of those samples. Someone makes measurements from those samples and draws a curve to fit them. Say, what made the US decide to take those measurements? Any intelligence that gave them suspicion?

I really appreciate your posts sharing the detailed history! Thank you for replying!
Yeah, I mean, Little Boy was a fairly straightforward design so they were sure it would work (especially after Otto Frisch's "guillotine" experiments that I really hope Nolan includes), but even if they wanted to test it, there simply wasn't enough enriched uranium coming out of Oak Ridge for more than just the one bomb. As for Little Boy being used before Fat Man, the dates of the bombings were dictated solely by when the parts got to Tinian and when the bombs were assembled; for Little Boy this meant being ready for use on August 3, while Fat Man was supposed to go a week later on August 10 (it was because of the weather that Little Boy was pushed back three days and Fat Man was brought up a day). So it wasn't a gamble to use Little Boy first; it was just that it happened to be ready first.

As for the surveillance over Russia, it was Strauss, ubiquitous as ever, that set it up and pushed it into operation, insisting that there should be some way for the United States to learn of foreign nuclear tests should they occur. And interestingly enough, Oppenheimer opposed the program, believing that airbursts or underground tests wouldn't produce enough fallout to be detectable, and recommending that the program shouldn't be put in place until seismic detection was available (in this he was simply wrong, as nuclear tests in 1948 showed, but it helped to raise doubts in Strauss' mind about Oppenheimer). That surveillance operation only started, by the way, a mere four months prior to the first Soviet test (although the one involving rain samples was independent and run by the Navy in D.C. without fancy B-29s or filter paper). The story's more involved, but this article covers it pretty well: https://www.inventionandtech.com/conten ... ?page=full.


Posts: 33
Joined: February 2023
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 2:26 pm
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:40 pm
...
Yeah, I mean, Little Boy was a fairly straightforward design so they were sure it would work (especially after Otto Frisch's "guillotine" experiments that I really hope Nolan includes), but even if they wanted to test it, there simply wasn't enough enriched uranium coming out of Oak Ridge for more than just the one bomb. As for Little Boy being used before Fat Man, the dates of the bombings were dictated solely by when the parts got to Tinian and when the bombs were assembled; for Little Boy this meant being ready for use on August 3, while Fat Man was supposed to go a week later on August 10 (it was because of the weather that Little Boy was pushed back three days and Fat Man was brought up a day). So it wasn't a gamble to use Little Boy first; it was just that it happened to be ready first.

As for the surveillance over Russia, it was Strauss, ubiquitous as ever, that set it up and pushed it into operation, insisting that there should be some way for the United States to learn of foreign nuclear tests should they occur. And interestingly enough, Oppenheimer opposed the program, believing that airbursts or underground tests wouldn't produce enough fallout to be detectable, and recommending that the program shouldn't be put in place until seismic detection was available (in this he was simply wrong, as nuclear tests in 1948 showed, but it helped to raise doubts in Strauss' mind about Oppenheimer). That surveillance operation only started, by the way, a mere four months prior to the first Soviet test (although the one involving rain samples was independent and run by the Navy in D.C. without fancy B-29s or filter paper). The story's more involved, but this article covers it pretty well: https://www.inventionandtech.com/conten ... ?page=full.
Got it. The guillotine experiment sounds really interesting, whenever I learn the history about a topic, especially in WWII, I find that the depth of any one operation seems so much larger than I could have imagined. It makes me curious about how much depth can be shown feasibly. How many of these parts with Nolan show the audience? He has said that the color scenes are subjective, from Oppenheimer's POV, but how much will that give an impression of these other facets of the project?

Wow, I was going to ask if it was anticipatory but thought it would be too unlikely! And the fact that the surveillance began a few months before Russia's test is quite lucky, even if the one that actually measured the test was actually an entirely different operation, independent of the former. Were the original rain measurements by the Navy simply superseded by the aerial radiological measurements or were they done at the same time by different agencies?

Posts: 285
Joined: April 2023
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 5:49 pm
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 2:26 pm
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 1:40 pm
...
Yeah, I mean, Little Boy was a fairly straightforward design so they were sure it would work (especially after Otto Frisch's "guillotine" experiments that I really hope Nolan includes), but even if they wanted to test it, there simply wasn't enough enriched uranium coming out of Oak Ridge for more than just the one bomb. As for Little Boy being used before Fat Man, the dates of the bombings were dictated solely by when the parts got to Tinian and when the bombs were assembled; for Little Boy this meant being ready for use on August 3, while Fat Man was supposed to go a week later on August 10 (it was because of the weather that Little Boy was pushed back three days and Fat Man was brought up a day). So it wasn't a gamble to use Little Boy first; it was just that it happened to be ready first.

As for the surveillance over Russia, it was Strauss, ubiquitous as ever, that set it up and pushed it into operation, insisting that there should be some way for the United States to learn of foreign nuclear tests should they occur. And interestingly enough, Oppenheimer opposed the program, believing that airbursts or underground tests wouldn't produce enough fallout to be detectable, and recommending that the program shouldn't be put in place until seismic detection was available (in this he was simply wrong, as nuclear tests in 1948 showed, but it helped to raise doubts in Strauss' mind about Oppenheimer). That surveillance operation only started, by the way, a mere four months prior to the first Soviet test (although the one involving rain samples was independent and run by the Navy in D.C. without fancy B-29s or filter paper). The story's more involved, but this article covers it pretty well: https://www.inventionandtech.com/conten ... ?page=full.
Got it. The guillotine experiment sounds really interesting, whenever I learn the history about a topic, especially in WWII, I find that the depth of any one operation seems so much larger than I could have imagined. It makes me curious about how much depth can be shown feasibly. How many of these parts with Nolan show the audience? He has said that the color scenes are subjective, from Oppenheimer's POV, but how much will that give an impression of these other facets of the project?

Wow, I was going to ask if it was anticipatory but thought it would be too unlikely! And the fact that the surveillance began a few months before Russia's test is quite lucky, even if the one that actually measured the test was actually an entirely different operation, independent of the former. Were the original rain measurements by the Navy simply superseded by the aerial radiological measurements or were they done at the same time by different agencies?
I share that concern as well; there's enough in the Manhattan Project alone to warrant multiple seasons of television, and Nolan has to tell its story in three hours (much less than that, in practice, given the additional focus on the pre-war and post-war years). I think the fact that Nolan has Oppenheimer visiting Chicago Pile 1, despite that never happening in real life, shows that he's going to try and show the scale of the Manhattan Project, but I can't imagine him depicting a lot of what was happening at Los Alamos beyond the implosion experiments, much less the work being done at other sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge. But one can hope!

I might've given the wrong impression of how Joe-1 was detected, since both the Air Force filter paper and Navy rain samples played a role in confirming the Soviet test (alongside a British detection program; all three programs were occurring independently and simultaneously). First, it was the filter paper attached to a B-29 flying just east of the Soviet Union which showed higher radioactivity than normal, and further flights confirmed that. The radioactive particles traveled eastward across the Pacific and over the US; rain brought these particles down over DC, where they were collected by the Navy's program (literally in rain barrels on the roof of the Naval Research Laboratory). The particles continued moving east across the Atlantic, where they were detected by the British over Scotland, having been warned in advance by the AEC. Ultimately, all three operations together confirmed that there was indeed a Soviet test (and from what I can tell, they all originated in the racket Strauss made about the need for a detection program; the Navy and Air Force programs directly, and the British program indirectly when the Air Force reached out to expand their program).

Posts: 33
Joined: February 2023
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 7:37 pm
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 5:49 pm
...
I share that concern as well; there's enough in the Manhattan Project alone to warrant multiple seasons of television, and Nolan has to tell its story in three hours (much less than that, in practice, given the additional focus on the pre-war and post-war years). I think the fact that Nolan has Oppenheimer visiting Chicago Pile 1, despite that never happening in real life, shows that he's going to try and show the scale of the Manhattan Project, but I can't imagine him depicting a lot of what was happening at Los Alamos beyond the implosion experiments, much less the work being done at other sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge. But one can hope!

I might've given the wrong impression of how Joe-1 was detected, since both the Air Force filter paper and Navy rain samples played a role in confirming the Soviet test (alongside a British detection program; all three programs were occurring independently and simultaneously). First, it was the filter paper attached to a B-29 flying just east of the Soviet Union which showed higher radioactivity than normal, and further flights confirmed that. The radioactive particles traveled eastward across the Pacific and over the US; rain brought these particles down over DC, where they were collected by the Navy's program (literally in rain barrels on the roof of the Naval Research Laboratory). The particles continued moving east across the Atlantic, where they were detected by the British over Scotland, having been warned in advance by the AEC. Ultimately, all three operations together confirmed that there was indeed a Soviet test (and from what I can tell, they all originated in the racket Strauss made about the need for a detection program; the Navy and Air Force programs directly, and the British program indirectly when the Air Force reached out to expand their program).
Well, one exciting thing about following a film's production is kind of similar. You only see bits and pieces from very public filming locations. Not the soundstage work, the lesser-known locations, the effects work, all the post work -- even if you think you've seen too much there's still a lot more to it. I think we could be pleasantly surprised. For example, maybe we'll see more of Lawrence's work. I feel like all the "separation processes" are another thing that's hard to avoid in telling this, but I haven't read the book so I'm not sure the amount of emphasis is placed in it.

It's so... orderly. They all seemed so ready just at the right moment. And yet another massive effort. For all Strauss is likely to be portrayed as an antagonist, and even with the anti-Communist sentiments in various members of congress propelling terrible decisions, being wary of Russia in this particular way proved useful.

Also, regarding all this history, I was considering making a dedicated trailer analysis thread. There's a lot of cool details shown so far in the trailers, but most of the topics seem to fizzle out and instead they're just trading the high bitrate trailers and guessing cast. I think there's a lot of small details that attentive history aficionados must really like seeing in the trailers! Even though my own "analysis" so far has been limited to silly visual stuff:

"wow, they reconstructed the guardpost in the correct shape! even the replica Los Alamos has is entirely wrong!"

"is that field supposed to be Stagg field? it looks nothing like it!! my life is not complete without the gothic stands"

"why is the raised platform around the Chicago Pile shaped that way? that looks different from all the drawings/models/photos! plus the pile doesn't have as many bricks!!"

"the number of pieces of tape on the gadget as it's being lifted up is wrong! they forgot half of them! why?!"

"hey I read all those details about the sunscreen and the welder's glasses for the test, cool!!"

"the switches at the base of the tower!!" (someone else mentioned this to me because he played the Infocom text adventure game Trinity and remembered it)

lol

Posts: 285
Joined: April 2023
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 8:21 pm
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 7:37 pm
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 5:49 pm
...
I share that concern as well; there's enough in the Manhattan Project alone to warrant multiple seasons of television, and Nolan has to tell its story in three hours (much less than that, in practice, given the additional focus on the pre-war and post-war years). I think the fact that Nolan has Oppenheimer visiting Chicago Pile 1, despite that never happening in real life, shows that he's going to try and show the scale of the Manhattan Project, but I can't imagine him depicting a lot of what was happening at Los Alamos beyond the implosion experiments, much less the work being done at other sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge. But one can hope!

I might've given the wrong impression of how Joe-1 was detected, since both the Air Force filter paper and Navy rain samples played a role in confirming the Soviet test (alongside a British detection program; all three programs were occurring independently and simultaneously). First, it was the filter paper attached to a B-29 flying just east of the Soviet Union which showed higher radioactivity than normal, and further flights confirmed that. The radioactive particles traveled eastward across the Pacific and over the US; rain brought these particles down over DC, where they were collected by the Navy's program (literally in rain barrels on the roof of the Naval Research Laboratory). The particles continued moving east across the Atlantic, where they were detected by the British over Scotland, having been warned in advance by the AEC. Ultimately, all three operations together confirmed that there was indeed a Soviet test (and from what I can tell, they all originated in the racket Strauss made about the need for a detection program; the Navy and Air Force programs directly, and the British program indirectly when the Air Force reached out to expand their program).
Well, one exciting thing about following a film's production is kind of similar. You only see bits and pieces from very public filming locations. Not the soundstage work, the lesser-known locations, the effects work, all the post work -- even if you think you've seen too much there's still a lot more to it. I think we could be pleasantly surprised. For example, maybe we'll see more of Lawrence's work. I feel like all the "separation processes" are another thing that's hard to avoid in telling this, but I haven't read the book so I'm not sure the amount of emphasis is placed in it.

It's so... orderly. They all seemed so ready just at the right moment. And yet another massive effort. For all Strauss is likely to be portrayed as an antagonist, and even with the anti-Communist sentiments in various members of congress propelling terrible decisions, being wary of Russia in this particular way proved useful.

Also, regarding all this history, I was considering making a dedicated trailer analysis thread. There's a lot of cool details shown so far in the trailers, but most of the topics seem to fizzle out and instead they're just trading the high bitrate trailers and guessing cast. I think there's a lot of small details that attentive history aficionados must really like seeing in the trailers! Even though my own "analysis" so far has been limited to silly visual stuff:

"wow, they reconstructed the guardpost in the correct shape! even the replica Los Alamos has is entirely wrong!"

"is that field supposed to be Stagg field? it looks nothing like it!! my life is not complete without the gothic stands"

"why is the raised platform around the Chicago Pile shaped that way? that looks different from all the drawings/models/photos! plus the pile doesn't have as many bricks!!"

"the number of pieces of tape on the gadget as it's being lifted up is wrong! they forgot half of them! why?!"

"hey I read all those details about the sunscreen and the welder's glasses for the test, cool!!"

"the switches at the base of the tower!!" (someone else mentioned this to me because he played the Infocom text adventure game Trinity and remembered it)

lol
I'd absolutely be onboard with such a thread should you choose to make one. My historical interests focus more on the big picture narrative and the sequence of events, so although I've noticed a couple things in the trailers (the security gate being too close to Los Alamos, CP-1 looking weird), I'd be very curious to see what you and others find. What you list may be "silly visual stuff," but it's the kind of stuff that's always interesting to find and compare with real history, and the more nitpicky, the better, haha (like, I think the stand-in for Stagg Field was filmed at Berkeley).

Personally, I don't think Nolan will spend more than a couple minutes, if any, on the separation/enrichment processes. As much as I'd love for him to show the reactors at Hanford and the racetracks at Oak Ridge, if the focus is on Oppenheimer then I doubt they'll appear (to the best of my recollection, he wasn't involved in the separation business besides endorsing Abelson's method of liquid thermal diffusion). And frankly, despite Strauss' role in pushing forward the detection programs, everything else that Strauss did pretty firmly and rightly secures his role as the film's villain. He was a very unlikeable person who pursued a personal grudge against Oppenheimer to an infuriating and illegal extent, as the book covers in detail. Of course it wasn't just Strauss - Oppenheimer had many enemies in the Air Force, AEC, and among other scientists like Teller and Lawrence - but, more than anyone else, Strauss was the architect of his downfall.

Posts: 281
Joined: March 2022
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 9:50 pm
Crysist wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 8:21 pm
physicshistoryguy wrote:
June 4th, 2023, 7:37 pm


I share that concern as well; there's enough in the Manhattan Project alone to warrant multiple seasons of television, and Nolan has to tell its story in three hours (much less than that, in practice, given the additional focus on the pre-war and post-war years). I think the fact that Nolan has Oppenheimer visiting Chicago Pile 1, despite that never happening in real life, shows that he's going to try and show the scale of the Manhattan Project, but I can't imagine him depicting a lot of what was happening at Los Alamos beyond the implosion experiments, much less the work being done at other sites like Hanford and Oak Ridge. But one can hope!

I might've given the wrong impression of how Joe-1 was detected, since both the Air Force filter paper and Navy rain samples played a role in confirming the Soviet test (alongside a British detection program; all three programs were occurring independently and simultaneously). First, it was the filter paper attached to a B-29 flying just east of the Soviet Union which showed higher radioactivity than normal, and further flights confirmed that. The radioactive particles traveled eastward across the Pacific and over the US; rain brought these particles down over DC, where they were collected by the Navy's program (literally in rain barrels on the roof of the Naval Research Laboratory). The particles continued moving east across the Atlantic, where they were detected by the British over Scotland, having been warned in advance by the AEC. Ultimately, all three operations together confirmed that there was indeed a Soviet test (and from what I can tell, they all originated in the racket Strauss made about the need for a detection program; the Navy and Air Force programs directly, and the British program indirectly when the Air Force reached out to expand their program).
Well, one exciting thing about following a film's production is kind of similar. You only see bits and pieces from very public filming locations. Not the soundstage work, the lesser-known locations, the effects work, all the post work -- even if you think you've seen too much there's still a lot more to it. I think we could be pleasantly surprised. For example, maybe we'll see more of Lawrence's work. I feel like all the "separation processes" are another thing that's hard to avoid in telling this, but I haven't read the book so I'm not sure the amount of emphasis is placed in it.

It's so... orderly. They all seemed so ready just at the right moment. And yet another massive effort. For all Strauss is likely to be portrayed as an antagonist, and even with the anti-Communist sentiments in various members of congress propelling terrible decisions, being wary of Russia in this particular way proved useful.

Also, regarding all this history, I was considering making a dedicated trailer analysis thread. There's a lot of cool details shown so far in the trailers, but most of the topics seem to fizzle out and instead they're just trading the high bitrate trailers and guessing cast. I think there's a lot of small details that attentive history aficionados must really like seeing in the trailers! Even though my own "analysis" so far has been limited to silly visual stuff:

"wow, they reconstructed the guardpost in the correct shape! even the replica Los Alamos has is entirely wrong!"

"is that field supposed to be Stagg field? it looks nothing like it!! my life is not complete without the gothic stands"

"why is the raised platform around the Chicago Pile shaped that way? that looks different from all the drawings/models/photos! plus the pile doesn't have as many bricks!!"

"the number of pieces of tape on the gadget as it's being lifted up is wrong! they forgot half of them! why?!"

"hey I read all those details about the sunscreen and the welder's glasses for the test, cool!!"

"the switches at the base of the tower!!" (someone else mentioned this to me because he played the Infocom text adventure game Trinity and remembered it)

lol
I'd absolutely be onboard with such a thread should you choose to make one. My historical interests focus more on the big picture narrative and the sequence of events, so although I've noticed a couple things in the trailers (the security gate being too close to Los Alamos, CP-1 looking weird), I'd be very curious to see what you and others find. What you list may be "silly visual stuff," but it's the kind of stuff that's always interesting to find and compare with real history, and the more nitpicky, the better, haha (like, I think the stand-in for Stagg Field was filmed at Berkeley).

Personally, I don't think Nolan will spend more than a couple minutes, if any, on the separation/enrichment processes. As much as I'd love for him to show the reactors at Hanford and the racetracks at Oak Ridge, if the focus is on Oppenheimer then I doubt they'll appear (to the best of my recollection, he wasn't involved in the separation business besides endorsing Abelson's method of liquid thermal diffusion). And frankly, despite Strauss' role in pushing forward the detection programs, everything else that Strauss did pretty firmly and rightly secures his role as the film's villain. He was a very unlikeable person who pursued a personal grudge against Oppenheimer to an infuriating and illegal extent, as the book covers in detail. Of course it wasn't just Strauss - Oppenheimer had many enemies in the Air Force, AEC, and among other scientists like Teller and Lawrence - but, more than anyone else, Strauss was the architect of his downfall.
It's gonna be interesting seeing the balance between Oppy as this flawed character who is arguably the architect of his own downfall (as I commented in another thread, chain smoking gave him throat cancer) and also making him this persecuted and sympathetic character. No wonder Nolan called him the most "contradictory" (think that's the word he used) character he's ever tackled. Strauss indeed seems like the "villain" but it's interesting that he apparently did what he did illegally. So he broke laws and rules during this trial process?

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