Talk:Project Y

Project Y 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.

Project Y 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.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 16, 2017.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 12, 2016	Good article nominee	Listed
January 22, 2017	WikiProject A-class review	Approved
March 10, 2017	Featured article candidate	Promoted
May 29, 2018	Featured topic candidate	Promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 20, 2016. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Project Y* designed an atomic bomb that used explosive lenses* (depicted) to focus an explosion onto a sphere?
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Military history: Technology / Weaponry / North America / United States / World War II / Cold War

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Project Y and LANL[edit]

This page appears to be a fork from the Manhattan Project page 2016, but instead of merging information with the LANL page, a duplicate page was made. If nobody objects, I will start working on merging the two pages.

Inanimatecarbonrobin (talk) 22:49, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose !!! This page is about the wartime laboratory, and is a subarticle of Manhattan Project. The other article is about the post-war national laboratory. They should not be merged. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:48, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Hawkeye. Secret wartime laboratory and modern LANL need separate articles. Artem.G (talk) 13:57, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per above, they are different, for example Oppenheimer headed Project Y but not LANL. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How many worked there?[edit]

I was looking to see numbers on employees. I was expecting something in the lead (or even infobox), but where are those numbers and can we put something in the lead? It seems basic to understanding the operation. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much on it. There wasn't a lot of personnel by Manhattan Project standards. Stafford Warren says "The population of Los Alamos did not rise above 5,000 and was sometimes as small as 3,000."^[1] For a discusion for the project as a whole, see ^[2] NuclearSecrets may have a better source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Warren, Stafford L. (1966). "The Role of Radiology in the Development of the Atomic Bomb". In Ahnfeldt, Arnold Lorentz (ed.). Radiology in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army. p. 879. OCLC 630225.
^ Wellerstein, Alex (1 November 2013). "How many people worked on the Manhattan Project?". Restricted Data. Retrieved 12 March 2024.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Manhattan District History (Book 8, Volume 1, Part 2, Los Alamos, General Appendices, Appendix B) has very detailed data. Almost too detailed. Peak wartime population at Los Alamos was in June 1945 with an estimated total about 8,750, of which around 4,500 were civilian workers, a little under 2,500 were military, and about 1,750 were dependents. Peak is not the same thing as _total_ of course. Another graph shows that peak payroll was about 7,000 people, which matches those other numbers.

MDH Book 8, Volume 1, Part 1, Los Alamos—General, page 7.15 has some good quotes about population figures, including the fact that no official census was ever taken until April 1946 because the population size was considered "highly classified information." NuclearSecrets (talk) 05:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Warren, Stafford L. (1966). "The Role of Radiology in the Development of the Atomic Bomb". In Ahnfeldt, Arnold Lorentz (ed.). Radiology in World War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army. p. 879. OCLC 630225.

[2] Wellerstein, Alex (1 November 2013). "How many people worked on the Manhattan Project?". Restricted Data. Retrieved 12 March 2024.

[1]

[2]