On the way out of Knoxville

On the way out of Knoxville we visited the AMSE- American Museum of Science and Energy. It is at the site of the formerly secret town of x-10, now called Oak Ridge, TN. This city was purchased, built and filled by the US Government during WWII in the race to build the Atom Bomb. Most people are familiar with another place- Site Y at Los Alamos. In site X scientist were working on how to get the nuclear reaction to start and become self perpetuating. The conventional wisdom when they started the project was you needed heavy water and Uranium 239- but the Nazi's had cornered the market on both supplies. So the scientist used Plutonium and graphite. They also needed a conducting metal for coils and tubing and copper was in short supply so they made them out of silver. The US treasury was a little aghast when they requested TONS of silver- having only dispensed it by the Troy ounce before.