IN THIS ISSUE

Letters

• The history issue
  Our Laboratory continues to push the envelope of what’s possible, making history every day.

Abstracts

• Presidential visits
  Many public figures have toured the Lab, including several senior government officials.
• What's in a name?
  Los Alamos has had three names in 77 years.
• The man who was nearly Oppenheimer
  Nobel Laureate Carl David Anderson was the first person tapped to lead Project Y.
• Nobel Prizes
  Twenty scientists with ties to Los Alamos have won Nobel Prizes.
• Switchable explosives
  What if an explosive could be switched on and off like a light?
• The space-clutter dilemma
  A revolutionary update to the solid rocket engine will help solve a fast-growing satellite problem.
• Raiders of the lost archive
  Relocating the Rocky Flats archive to Los Alamos ensures we will learn from history, not repeat it.

Features

• The Trinity test
  Seventy-five years ago, Los Alamos scientists detonated the world’s first atomic bomb.
• The mission that changed the world
  On August 6, 1945, the crew of the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb designed at Los Alamos on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
• Generations of tradition
  Brigadier General Paul Tibbets IV reflects on his family’s legacy of military service.
• Why wasn't Little Boy tested?
  The bomb’s components were tested, and Lab scientists were certain of its success.
• Cold War watchmen
  In the 1960s, Los Alamos changed the national security landscape with Project Vela—satellites that could detect nuclear explosions in space.
• The mystery flash that changed astrophysics
  Project Vela discovered cosmic gamma-ray bursts.
• Behind the bamboo curtain
  Only two U.S. nuclear weapons experts have officially seen the Chinese nuclear test site at Lop Nur. They were from Los Alamos.

Analysis

• Doomed to cooperate
  Siegfried Hecker recalls the relationship between the U.S. and Russia at the end of the Cold War.

Being Essential

• Forged in fire
  Engineer and bladesmith Boyd Ritter intertwines art and science to create custom knives.