Seen Any Nazi Uranium? These Researchers Want To Know

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2019

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel shares the story of Nazi Germany's attempt to build a nuclear reactor — and how evidence of that effort was almost lost to history. It's a tale he heard from Timothy Koeth and Miriam Hiebert at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park. Read more on their original story in Physics Today. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.5	Maddie, you're here with NPR Science correspondent Jeff Brumfield.
0:08.4	What's up Jeff?
0:09.4	Hey there.
0:10.4	I've got to say, today's episode is a lot.
0:13.5	So let's not waste time.
0:15.5	Take us to the summer day in suburban Maryland where the story starts.
0:19.2	Yeah, so right outside DC, there's this physicist named Timothy Coat.
0:23.3	He works at the University of Maryland.
0:24.9	And one day he's out for a jog when he gets this phone call from a friend of his who's
0:29.4	kind of a private person wants to stay anonymous.
0:31.9	Anyway, this friend says, I need to meet you as soon as possible.
0:35.9	Person said, OK, I knew where you are.
0:37.8	Meet me in this parking lot and about 20 minutes later we got together.
0:41.3	So they meet up.
0:42.7	Tim's friend gets out of the car and has something to show him.
0:47.0	Kind of the car, the trunk of the car.
0:49.9	And this little brown, a lunch satchel wrapped in paper towels was this cube.
0:59.8	A cube.
1:00.6	A cube.
1:01.4	That's right.
1:01.9	I saw this corner of an edge with a little notch in it and this characteristic gray.
	...

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