Talk:K-25

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Featured articleK-25 is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Featured topic starK-25 is part of the History of the Manhattan Project series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 16, 2020.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 21, 2016Good article nomineeListed
November 2, 2016WikiProject A-class reviewApproved
January 31, 2018Featured article candidatePromoted
May 29, 2018Featured topic candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on June 28, 2016.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant was once the largest building under one roof in the world?
Current status: Featured article

Closure[edit]

Though there is a "Closure and Demolition" section, nothing whatsoever is said about its closure. Why was this building closed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.26.39 (talk) 03:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Largest building[edit]

Is it really larger than the Pentagon building? The list of world's largest buildings has the pentagon listed as slightly larger and the article on the Palazzo seems to corroborate this. Taking the info out until it's confirmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.240.136.81 (talk) 15:26, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes such arguments lead to silly contrary statements such as the above -- because there are more than one way to calculate the size of a building. One way is by the number of cubic meters (or cubic feet) of space that it encloses, for which factory buildings such as the K-25 building rate high, because they have very high ceilings. Another way is by their number of square meters (or square feet) of floor "space" that they have. The Pentagon building (an office building) rates high on this because it is a multi-story (about five) building with relatively-low ceilings, so you get lots of floor space in a smaller volume. Note that in this case, the "Pentagon" is always capitalized, because that is the proper name for that building, similar to the "Empire State Building", "Independence Hall", or the "Astrodome".
In any case, and beyond any question, the K-25 plant, when completed, was the world's largest single factory building. It also remained that way until the Boeing Corporation's factory building in Everett, Washington, was completed in the late 1960s for the purpose of building Boeing 747 jumbo jets inside it.
Also, the world's largest single building (and I believe still is) in terms of volume inclosed was the Vertical Assembly Building that was constructed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the 1960s for assembling Saturn V rockets. It has the capacity for the assembly of five Saturn Vs at once, though that many never were there all at the same time.98.67.164.50 (talk) 07:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Info from Y-12 article[edit]

Someone posted this info to Y-12 National Security Complex. I've never heard of K-25 being part of Y-12, so I'm moving the text here. Please incorporate it as you see fit. --Allen 01:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

K-25, another building in the Y-12 Complex, was the largest building in the world when built. The people needed for the construction of the building lived near by, in a community that came to be known as Happy Valley. Built by the army in 1943, Happy Valley was a temporary community that housed 15,000 people in trailor homes. The building had 2 million squre feet of workspace and was a half mile long. It required 35 miles off electrical wire and used roughly the same amount of water needed for a city with a population of 25 million. A team of 12,000 was needed just to look for leaks in the pipes that were used in the enrichment process, which had to be air tight. The building was used to process 100 tons of uranium.

P.S. I went ahead and pasted in the two sentences about Happy Valley, since there certainly should be something about Happy Valley in the article. --Allen 01:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right: The K-25 plant has nothing to do with Y-12, and there is actually a significant drive in a car between the two (like 25 minutes long). They aren't even in the same county, with Y-12 being in Oak Ridge in Anderson County, Tennessee, whereas, the K-25 plant was in the next county to the west, Roane County, Tennessee 98.67.164.50 (talk) 07:04, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A Redirect to this article is needed[edit]

A redirect to this article is needed: the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
The Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant is mentioned in several other Wikipedia articles, such as on uranium enrichment, nuclear weapons, yellowcake uranium, and so forth.98.67.164.50 (talk) 07:04, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Inclusion into the National Parks System[edit]

It would be good to include mention of the plans to have the K-25 site converted to a National Parks Service Heritage Site. The article at http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/may/18/demolition-versus-preservation-k-25-plan-still-a/ should be a good starting place for reference.

Uranium enrichment by calutrons[edit]

Should not the uranium enrichment by calutrons be mentioned? Was not all the Little Boy material made with this methode? (See [[1]] article) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 7tkp7 (talkcontribs) 18:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in K-25[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of K-25's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Beaton1962":

  • From Gaseous diffusion: Beaton L (1962). "The slow-down in nuclear explosive production". New Scientist. 16 (309): 141–3. Retrieved 2010-11-20.
  • From Methoxyflurane: Beaton L (1962). "The slow-down in nuclear explosive production". New Scientist. 16 (309): 141–3.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT 01:30, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Title[edit]

G'day Hawkeye, I'm thinking that this article title isn't very helpful at present in terms of telling anyone what it is about. Perhaps add the word "project" to it at a minimum? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:40, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. See K25. This "disambiguation by punctuation" isn't enough - especially against K-25 (Kansas highway).
I'd prefer to see a disambig that conveyed something to the reader though. "K-25 (Manhattan Project)"? "K-25 uranium enrichment facility"? "K-25 Project" is a possible, but I'd say the primary topic was the building, not the earlier project. Also as a project name, this ought to be capitalised. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:33, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As the article chronicles, and Adam notes, the meaning of "K-25" drifted over time. It originally referred to the process, then the project. When that ended, what was left was the K-25 area at Oak Ridge. Finally, it became applied to the building. The article covers all of this, but the primary topic is the project. There is a precedent here: S-50 (Manhattan Project). Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:38, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think K-25 (Manhattan Project) would do nicely. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 06:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

K-1206-F Watertower[edit]

Further information (and picture) wanted! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:DF:1F27:3E67:21D9:8F15:F49E:5517 (talk) 01:33, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The water tower may be worthy of mention, but it would probably be better to include it in the existing "Other buildings" section of the article, rather than make a new section for it. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:29, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As it was one of the tallest water towers ever built and the tallest ever realized in the United States, see Water tower#Tallest, it should be mentioned in the article.

Very well. I will update the article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:57, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Richwales:: Do you think we could take an image from [2]? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:52, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Hawkeye7:: Sounds good to me. I would recommend the three-photo sequence on page 15 of this report. It should be eligible for inclusion on Wikimedia Commons, with the "PD-USGov-DOE" copyright template and the attribution text "Courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy". I looked through all the photos in the "K-25" category on Commons and couldn't find any existing photo of the tower there. Are you familiar with the procedures for uploading things to Commons? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 20:17, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Uploaded and added to the article. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:39, 22 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]