The bomb (part 2): the atomic town

原子之城

Babbage from The Economist

2025-07-24

44 分钟
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How did the atom bombs of the Manhattan Project become the nuclear stockpile of today? At the heart of America's nuclear security enterprise lies a town: Los Alamos. It is where the first nuclear bomb was created. Today its national lab is tasked with designing and building America's first new warhead in decades. This four-part series traces the scientific story of nuclear weapons. We go behind the scenes at America's nuclear-weapons laboratories to find out how the country is pushing the frontiers of extreme physics, materials science and computing to modernise its stockpile. In episode two, we look at the town that built the first nuclear bomb—and how the race to build better, more powerful nuclear weapons ended up building the town.  Host: Alok Jha, The Economist's science and technology editor. Contributors: Kristen Hollis and Todd Nickols of the Los Alamos Historical Society; Nic Lewis and Thom Mason of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Ellen Bradbury Reid and Jim Bradbury, who grew up in Los Alamos. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.
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  • The Economist.

  • Drive out from the centre of Santa Fe in northern New Mexico and you quickly get to some spectacular scenery.

  • The Jemez Mountains are in front, and the Guaje Mountains, the North Mesa, Garcia Canyon, Santa Clara Canyon.

  • The one behind us, Cedro, has lots of canyons.

  • It turns out we were actually alongside the Pueblo Canyon.

  • Imagine something like the Grand Canyon just on a slightly smaller scale.

  • Our destination, the town of Los Alamos.

  • When you hear the words Los Alamos, you think of those towns in westerns, you know,

  • those movies where there's a dirt road in the middle,

  • there's maybe some wooden houses with verandas, someone playing a harmonica.

  • I know that's an exaggeration, but expect something in the middle of nowhere,

  • but when you drive in, it's just a normal town.

  • It just happens to be two and a half thousand metres up on a mountain,

  • and it is in the Middle of Nowhere, and that's still true,

  • because driving here drive through mountain roads and past canyons and things

  • but once you get here it doesn't feel like you're far away from anything at all.

  • Once we'd parked the car, a couple of very friendly locals were on hand to give us a better sense of where we were.

  • We're coming along to Ashley Pond, and during the Manhattan project, the laboratory was around this pond.

  • Kristin Hollis is a co-director of the Los Alamos Historical Society.

  • She and Todd Nichols, the other director, showed me around.