Topic:       Secret City Story: Oak Ridge's Role in WWII

Speaker:        William J. (Bill) Wilcox, Jr.
                        Retired Technical Director 
                        Oak Ridge K-25 & Y-12 Plants
                (and a Manhattan Project Chemist)
                Oak Ridge, Tennessee 

Where:          308 Pasqua Engineering Bldg.
                        U. of Tennessee Main Campus

When:           Wednesday, November 9, 2005
                1:30 - 2:30 pm. EST

Webcast:  http://www.engr.utk.edu/nuclear/colloquia
Viewers of the live webcast may submit questions and/or comments to the speaker either before or during the live webcast via an email message to utne@tennessee.edu.  Please include your name and affiliation in your email message.  Viewers who miss the live webcast can view the archived webcast, which is usually posted within 24 hours, at http://www.engr.utk.edu/nuclear/colloquia/Archive/ .  Viewers may also receive the speaker's slides in PDF format via email request to Ellen Fisher (efisher3@utk.edu) after the live webcast.

Abstract:

In 1942, in the midst of WWII, Knoxville, Tennessee residents became aware that a very large and hush-hush effort was underway out in the farmland west of town.  Sixty years later we can look back and tell why that Secret City came to be built in Knoxville's backyard, and something about what was going on out there.  Oak Ridge's mission had never been done before and was extraordinarily difficult -- trying to separate the U-235 isotope from the over hundred times more abundant U-238.  The billion-dollar effort required innovative engineering and science, and doing it successfully in less than 3 years was a monumental achievement. This presentation will be a personal, first-hand description of the activities associated with the achievement by one of the Manhattan Project participants, Mr. Bill Wilcox.