Monster truck FERMIAC

doi:10.1080/23324309.2018.1514312

Title: Monster truck FERMIAC

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Abstract

After World War II, Los Alamos was anxious for its own computer. While on a walk along the river during a picnic with their families, Enrico Fermi outlined to L.D.P. King a plan for an analog computer to simulate neutron transport. L.D.P. King built it with materials lying around the Omega Site in Los Alamos Canyon. They used the “FERMIAC” for a couple of years, and it was forgotten, until 1966, when Bengt Carlson found it in his office. The lab drew up some blueprints and it went out on loan to the Smithsonian. It is now on display at LANL’s Bradbury Science Museum. There still are several questions as to how the FERMIAC was used. The FERMIAC is too fragile to handle, so our plan in the summer of 2017 was to build a museum-quality replica, much like the Italians did last year. However, the summer student was leaving before it could be re-constructed. Thus, finding ourselves in a similar situation as Fermi and King, we developed our own one-speed neutron transporter fashioned out of the chassis of a toy monster truck. In conclusion, we describe our “Monster Truck FERMIAC” on an XY problem.

Authors:

^[1]; Houdek, Connor Joseph ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Publication Date:: 2018-11-18

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE

OSTI Identifier:: 1494461

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-18-25338
Journal ID: ISSN 2332-4309

Grant/Contract Number:: 89233218CNA000001

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Journal of Computational and Theoretical Transport

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 47; Journal Issue: 4-6; Journal ID: ISSN 2332-4309

Publisher:: Taylor and Francis

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; Fermi trolley; neutron trolley

Citation Formats


                    Urbatsch, Todd James, and Houdek, Connor Joseph. Monster truck FERMIAC.  United States: N. p., 2018. 
        Web.  doi:10.1080/23324309.2018.1514312.

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                    Urbatsch, Todd James, & Houdek, Connor Joseph. Monster truck FERMIAC.  United States.  doi:10.1080/23324309.2018.1514312.

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                    Urbatsch, Todd James, and Houdek, Connor Joseph. Sun .  
        "Monster truck FERMIAC".  United States.  doi:10.1080/23324309.2018.1514312.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1494461.

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@article{osti_1494461,

  title        = {Monster truck FERMIAC},

  author       = {Urbatsch, Todd James and Houdek, Connor Joseph},

  abstractNote = {After World War II, Los Alamos was anxious for its own computer. While on a walk along the river during a picnic with their families, Enrico Fermi outlined to L.D.P. King a plan for an analog computer to simulate neutron transport. L.D.P. King built it with materials lying around the Omega Site in Los Alamos Canyon. They used the “FERMIAC” for a couple of years, and it was forgotten, until 1966, when Bengt Carlson found it in his office. The lab drew up some blueprints and it went out on loan to the Smithsonian. It is now on display at LANL’s Bradbury Science Museum. There still are several questions as to how the FERMIAC was used. The FERMIAC is too fragile to handle, so our plan in the summer of 2017 was to build a museum-quality replica, much like the Italians did last year. However, the summer student was leaving before it could be re-constructed. Thus, finding ourselves in a similar situation as Fermi and King, we developed our own one-speed neutron transporter fashioned out of the chassis of a toy monster truck. In conclusion, we describe our “Monster Truck FERMIAC” on an XY problem.},

  doi          = {10.1080/23324309.2018.1514312},

  journal      = {Journal of Computational and Theoretical Transport},

  number       = 4-6,

  volume       = 47,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {2018},

  month        = {11}

}

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